“It is not important what happens where; Where we fall or rise, What we conquer or lose, How big or small we are.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“Almost as a rule, political dissidents were writers.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“It is enough to write a few lines about tanks in the streets in some sad country, about a clear injustice, which requires no description; it is enough to move from one side to another, to satisfy someone’s taste, the need of the moment, the need for “big” games to take a peek into everything and to prove everything with cheap opinions formed almost on command, almost as a recipe of measured pain to resolve the crisis, to extinguish the pain based on a few words that don’t change anything except that they flatter vanity and a misguided interest in all dimensions of life and creation, in the air that is being poisoned by smoke from cars, smoke from the television screens, the smoke curtains of politicians, left and right, the smoke of films and pop culture, smokescreens of intelligence that finds an explanation for all this, makes up theories, finds justification for the schizophrenic decisions of the new rulers, for wars, agreements, contracts; finds justification for obedience, for the sale of beliefs under the disguise of conviction, for several awards, for a few moments of illusion in the hocus-pocus world where the truth does not interest anyone anymore, except for ways for lies to be packaged and sold as the greatest truth with the help of big intellectuals that will find a good argument, a good defense and justification for everything, since everything becomes much easier, if a hoax is supported by “scientific” evidence.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“Marquez was not born in Colombia.He was born in Macondo, And his Macondo is his La Mancha.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“Quixote shines from Lorca and Picasso, From Dalí and El Greco, From the gloomy ‘View of Toledo.’ He was born before Cervantes.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“Everything is much easier in the half-blind and half-deaf world of modern giants that seduce processions of the blind into the world of great emptiness. In their sky the stars shine and their names live in the parallel and independently of their work.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“Bureaucracy is a huge beast; deeply rooted, it exists even among artists; it’s an almost losing battle against it.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“Is my victory real, does the winner adorned with a laurel wreath ask this question? Do I deserve victory or did I steal it from someone who is more worthy of victory?”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“They read a little bit, write a little, and especially agree with themselves on important moves, important information, important awards, important writers that they plan to enthrone forever in history through a variety of memberships and numerous prizes awarded under the influence of top bureaucrats who know everything, not only about literature, but also about secret conspiracies, the Masons that lurk in every corner to crucify someone, steal someone’s soul and sell it to an unknown devil, about whom only the chief bureaucrat possesses secret knowledge that he doesn’t share; about history, ghosts, missing continents; about who said what to whom in confidence.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“Neruda had his first dream, First meeting with the Moon and the Sun In sunny La Mancha, hiding in his heart,Where he learned how to sing like a nightingale.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“There are those who speak and those who dream.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“The purpose of life is life.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“Good is not always good.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“Names sound nice because no one peeks behind the cover to see the sad face of a poem crying for meaning, while the name of the creator proudly smiles from the title.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“A poem is its own name and cover.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“There are anonymous poems and poets without poems.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“They forget that love is not a science but an inherent state of mind; they forget that sex is practiced by animals without textbooks and that it is not such a secret that requires a complete science, courses and special training. And so impotent, with artificial stars on the ceilings of their rooms, they become the main teachers on the way to the stars.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“A well paid word deceives them. And what kind of a word is a word that has a price, high or low, which is adjusted to the price of fame, and how, long ago, when it was little appreciated, was it more valuable than it is today with a big price?”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“Everything passes through the eyes of top bureaucrats who closely watch to ensure that no intruder can enter their ranks and disrupt the order and arrangement of values in which everything is predetermined and where everyone knows their place, everyone’s potential, talent and position in history.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“Knowing how to dream is more important than the story, because the story tells itself.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“The length of novels, poems and stories, is measured by the number of missing words; a thousand pages become one, one becomes a thousand.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“An unrewarded value is more valuable than a reward with no value.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“The name does not deserve the poem, but the poem deserves the name.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“In a real poem a sound does not swallow a letter, but a letter swallows a sound.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“A poem does not radiate from the name, but the name emanates from the poem.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“A poem that is itself a name does not yearn for the name of its creator, but shines from its name alone.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“Anyone who writes can be called a writer because they write.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“What are all these writers fighting for? For their own victory or for the victory of their profession?”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“Those who would like to become writers attend courses on writing poetry and prose and analyze their own work and that of other writers in development. Teachers teach them that talent is not required and that anyone, who wants to be a writer, can do it if they only master the technique of writing and master the formulas of the genre that they choose. With a little brain storming ideas written on cards, as well as designs and plans on the table, one can even write a novel in a month. There is no secret; the whole secret is in the technique, a little research, and the rest is solved by form, according to a formula, in which it is all nicely wrapped up and packaged. And so, a bestseller is born.”
— Dejan Stojanovic
“Names do not write poems nor do they create work.”
— Dejan Stojanovic