Sofía Segovia > Quotes

“Tell them to walk in the shade. To listen with their eyes, to see with their skin, and to feel with their ears, because life speaks to us all and we just need to know and wait to listen to it, see it, feel it.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“Diles que caminen por la sombra. Que escuchen con los ojos, que vean con la piel y que sientan con los oídos, porque la vida nos habla a todos y sólo debemos saber y querer escucharla, verla, sentirla.”
― Sofía Segovia, El murmullo de las abejas

“It is in the deepest darkness that one sees things most clearly.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“Estoy seguro de que en mis células llevo a mi mamá y a mi papá, pero también porto la lavanda, los azahares, las sábanas maternas, los pasos calculados de mi abuela, las nueces tostadas, el 'clunc' del mosaico traidor, el azúcar a punto de caramelo, la leche quemada, las locas chicharras, los olores a madera antigua y los pisos de barro encerado. También estoy hecho de naranjas verdes, dulces o podridas; de miel de azahar y jalea real. Estoy hecho de cuanto esa época tocó mis sentidos y la parte de mi cerebro donde guardo mis recuerdos”
― Sofía Segovia, El murmullo de las abejas

“sólo se ve a la perfección cuando echamos la vista atrás, y por eso la vida la llenamos de “hubieras”.”
― Sofía Segovia, El murmullo de las abejas

“But let me tell you what I know, what I’ve concluded: it doesn’t matter whether time passes slowly or quickly. What you can be sure of is that, in the end, all you want is to have more. More of those lazy afternoons when nothing happens, despite your best efforts to the contrary. More of those annoying arms that picked you up to stop you doing something crazy. More tellings-off from the mother who you thought was a nag. More glimpses, even, of your father hurrying somewhere, always busy. More soft embraces from the wife who loved you all your life, and more trusting looks from your children’s young eyes.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“she understood that, while life offers no guarantees, sometimes it does offer gifts;”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“...aunque la vida no da garantías, a veces sí da regalos...”
― Sofía Segovia, El murmullo de las abejas

“We walk without looking back, because on this journey, all we care about is our destination.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“La vida no da garantías. A nadie. No espera a nadie. No tiene consideraciones con nadie.”
― Sofía Segovia, El murmullo de las abejas

“I do not wish to make light of the pain they must have felt at the loss of loved ones. Anyone who has been bereaved knows that the survivor’s recovery is a torturous road.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“Siempre flotaban en el aire los perfumes de los dulces de leche y nuez que hacía mi abuela, los de sus conservas y mermeladas, los del tomillo y el epazote que crecían en macetas en el jardín, y más recientemente los de naranjas, azahares y miel.”
― Sofía Segovia, El murmullo de las abejas

“Simonopio would never refute it: one should never contradict an act of love.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“entendiendo por primera vez quizá, y de primera mano, el verdadero significado de la muerte: que no hay marcha atrás y que lo que no se dijo a tiempo, jamás se dirá.”
― Sofía Segovia, El murmullo de las abejas

“The miracle would have been if those arrogant fools with the fate of the country in their hands had listened in time to the voices of the experts. Now it was too late.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“At my age, one realizes that time is a cruel and fickle master, for the more you want it, the faster it appears to vanish, and vice versa: the more you want to escape it, the more stagnant it becomes. We are its slaves—or its puppets, if you prefer—and it moves or paralyzes us at its whim. Today, for instance, I would like to reach the end of this story, so I wish I could have more time—that time would slow down. You, on other hand, might want this old man you’ve just met to be quiet so that you can put on your music or think about something else, so perhaps your journey is taking forever. But let me tell you what I know, what I’ve concluded: it doesn’t matter whether time passes slowly or quickly. What you can be sure of is that, in the end, all you want is to have more. More of those lazy afternoons when nothing happens, despite your best efforts to the contrary. More of those annoying arms that picked you up to stop you doing something crazy. More tellings-off from the mother who you thought was a nag. More glimpses, even, of your father hurrying somewhere, always busy. More soft embraces from the wife who loved you all your life, and more trusting looks from your children’s young eyes.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“And there were things that it was better not to know. We would leave in order to forget the bad things: the absences and the abandonments. We would go to remember just the good things. And in our ignorance, we would heal.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“Because the perfect course of action can only be seen in hindsight, which is why we fill life with so many should haves.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“One should not cling to old habits that no longer work in a changing world.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“There are no ghosts in this house, my father would say to me. What you hear are the echoes it has kept to remind us of all those who’ve been here.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“She remembered the promise that she had once made to no one but herself: not even in her old age would she allow herself to become anyone’s shadow. She would never be set adrift, at the mercy of other people’s decisions. She would never allow herself to stagnate.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“por lo que para pasar de ese momento al siguiente, para sobrevivir, se debe dejar salir o abandonar la existencia.”
― Sofía Segovia, El murmullo de las abejas

“Life waits for no one.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“Muy pronto los actores principales de esa farsa a la que llamaban 2revolución" olvidaron los parlamentos del guión que habían acordado y cobraron vida propia escribiendo sus propios diálogos y monólogos de traiciones y balaceras.”
― Sofía Segovia, El murmullo de las abejas

“But let me tell you what I know, what I’ve concluded: it doesn’t matter whether time passes slowly or quickly. What you can be sure of is that, in the end, all you want is to have more.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“The three most acute months of the Spanish influenza crisis left the survivors of Linares and of the whole world with scars that would never heal and voids that would never be filled.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“La guerra les había robado entonces la paz, la tranquilidad, la certeza y la familia, pues por Linares pasaban bandoleros que mataban y robaban. Se llevaban cualquier falda que encontrarán en su camino. Feas o bonitas, viejas o jóvenes, ricas o pobres: no hacían distingos.”
― Sofía Segovia, El murmullo de las abejas

“He had tried to convey to the inhabitants of the town how important it was to remain in quarantine,”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“He would have liked to discuss his bees and ask everyone why they didn’t hear them, given that they spoke to the others, too, as they did to him. Had he been able, he would have talked about the song the bees sang into his willing ear about flowers on the mountain, faraway encounters, and friends that had not made it on the long journey home; about the sun that would beat down hard one day but be covered in storm clouds the next.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees

“Still, in January 1919, in Linares, these details were of little interest, because absences were not measured in numbers or statistics: they were measured in grief.”
― Sofía Segovia, The Murmur of Bees