Top 120 Olga Tokarczuk Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “Who divided the world into useless and useful, and by what right?”

— Olga Tokarczuk

102. “It’s hard work talking to some people, most often males.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

103. “This question was so unexpected that I instantly let myself be carried away by memories. They began to sail past my eyes, and typically for memories, everything in them seemed better, finer, and happier than in reality. It’s strange, but we didn’t say a word.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

104. “Are you asleep?’ he asked. ‘Are you religious?’ I had to put the question. ‘Yes,’ he replied proudly. ‘I’m an atheist.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

105. “A thing that is not talked about ceases to exist.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

106. “Desire in itself is empty, in other words it merely indicates direction, but never destination; destinations, in any case, always remain phantasmagoric and unclear; the closer we get to them, the more enigmatic they become. By no means is it possible to ever actually attain a given destination, nor, in so doing, appease desire.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

107. “Everyone who seeks salvation must do three things: change his place of residence, change his name, and change his deeds.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

108. “There are more than enough traits and Characteristics in this world for each of us to be richly endowed, I thought to myself.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

109. “It is written that there are three things that do not come if you are thinking of them: the Messiah, lost objects, and scorpions.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

110. “Some people have a sense of unearthly things, just as others have an excellent sense of smell or hearing or taste. They can feel the subtle shifts in the great and complicated body of the world. And some of these have so honed that inner sight that they can even tell where a holy spark has fallen, notice its glow in the very place you would least expect it. The worse the place, the more fervently the spark gleams, flickers – and the warmer and purer is its light.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

111. “One can put up with the petty things that hardly cause any discomfort, but not with senseless, ubiquitous cruelty. It’s perfectly simple – if other people are happy, we’re happy too. The simplest equation in the world.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

112. “Real wisdom lies in linking everything together – that’s when the true shape of all of it emerges.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

113. “It’s a feature of flashlights that they’re only visible in the daytime.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

114. “Each man was my brother and each woman my sister. We were so very much alike. So fragile, impermanent, and easily destroyed.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

115. “We should have some other collection of knowledge, then, to balance that one out – its inverse, its inner lining, everything we don’t know, all the things that can’t be captured in any index, can’t be handled by any search engine. For the vastness of these contents cannot be traversed from word to word – you have to step in between the words, into the unfathomable abysses between ideas.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

116. “Anger can prompt one to utter various words, but it can also make one fail to remember them afterward.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

117. “We are shaped not by what is strong in us but by the anomaly, by whatever is weak and not accepted.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

118. “Anxiety is the fruit of ignorance.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

119. “Our senses impose on us a particular kind of knowledge of the world. And they are limited, aren’t they? But what if the world around us is entirely different than our imperfect senses try to convince us?”

— Olga Tokarczuk

120. “Izydor couldn’t care less about either the Party or going to church. Now he needed time for thinking, remembering Ruta, for reading, for learning German, for writing letters, collecting stamps, staring at his skylight, and gradually, idly sensing the order of the universe.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

121. “It takes the Police a long time to establish things that seem obvious.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

122. “It’s strange how the Night erases all colors, as if it didn’t give a damn about such worldly extravagance.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

123. “The worst thing possible is to feel fully valued by others, and particularly – as I would put it – to be considered of standard value. It means we become literalized, and we come to a halt in the development that a lack of full appreciation prompts us to strive towards. When a person recognizes that he has become perfect and fulfilled, he should kill himself.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

124. “Those of us who think God addresses us by means of external events are wrong, as naive as children. For he whispers directly into our innermost souls.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

125. “It is at Dusk that the most interesting things occur, for that is when simple differences fade away. I could live in everlasting Dusk.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

126. “Do you know what is the most common mistake people make when they’re in danger? Each one thinks their life is unique, and that death doesn’t affect them. No one believes in their own death. Do you think I believe in my own death?”

— Olga Tokarczuk

127. “Anger makes the mind clear and incisive, able to see more. It sweeps up the other emotions and takes control of the body. Without a doubt Anger is the source of all wisdom, for Anger has the power to exceed any limits.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

128. “Asher Rubin thinks that most people are truly idiots, and that it is human stupidity that is ultimately responsible for introducing sadness into the world. It isn’t a sin or a trait with which human beings are born, but a false view of the world, a mistaken evaluation of what is seen by our eyes. Which is why people perceive every thing in isolation, each object separate from the rest. Real wisdom lies in linking everything together – that’s when the true shape of all of it emerges.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

129. “We may be similarly disabled inhabitants of a world that consists of three dimensions, and we shall never know what a four-dimensional world is like. Do you see? We have no tools or senses to introduce us to a world with an extra dimension, let alone a fifth, and a seventh, and a twenty-sixth. Our minds cannot conceive of it.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

130. “The inn looks quite luxurious, but their host explains that as the plague has racked up victims, people have grown more and more afraid to leave their homes, terrified to purchase things from those who have been stricken.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

131. “One period of grief is followed by another, so I am in constant mourning. This is my natural state.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

132. “The entire conversation sounded like the mutterings of people who do not need words to communicate.”

— Olga Tokarczuk

133. “Shouldn’t women dress up in some sort of uniform too, and wear medals according to how many children they’ve had, how many dinners they’ve cooked, or how many patients they’ve nursed? That would be both beautiful and fair.”

— Olga Tokarczuk