Eduardo Mendoza (Barcelona, 1943) is a famous Spanish writer. His novels, with a simple style and aimed at all audiences, have been great sales.

Of course, the quality of his stories is always an indispensable requirement, and both critics and audiences consider Eduardo Mendoza to be one of the quintessential writers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Famous phrases of Eduardo Mendoza

With works such as The Truth about the Savolta Case, No News of Gurb or The Year of the Flood, Eduardo Mendoza’s work also encompasses rehearsal and theatre.

With today’s article we want to pay a small tribute to this author with the best phrases of Eduardo Mendoza.

1. They were days of irresponsible fullness, of imperceptible happiness…

Poetic fragment of The Truth about the Savolta Case.

2. It is human nature to falter when dreams begin to materialize.

A reflection that we must take into consideration.

3. That all those locked up there clearly perceive the madness of others but none of them their own…

Excerpt from The Ladies’ Room Adventure.

4. The small size of the premises saved him cleaning costs and furniture.

Excerpt from The Truth about the Savolta Case.

5. Ancestors and descendants are important. Past and future. Without past and future, everything is present, and present is fleeting.

About time and its limits.

6. You don’t know who Franco was, with him there was no freedom or social justice, but it was good to watch TV.

A brilliant reflection on the time of dictatorship in Spain.

7. Do like me: take advantage of being old. I am not old. Go practice. The secret to getting too old is to get old too soon.

To be considered for the future.

8. He symbolized better than anyone the spirit of an era that has died a little with him today.

Fragment of The City of Wonders.

9. And that he achieved all this alone and without help, starting from scratch on the basis of courage and will?

The Instituto Cervantes, on the figure of Eduardo Mendoza.

10. You may wonder how I could have been so successful with men without being worth much. There’s no merit to it. Men are very demanding when it comes to making aesthetic judgements about women, but when it comes down to it, they’ll settle for anything. When I discovered this, my life became much more interesting. I don’t mind admitting that I’ve used men.

Another paragraph from The Ladies’ Room Adventure.

11. Luckily a tip solves any problem in a satisfactory way. Everything in this country can be fixed with a good tip. When I arrived I found it hard to understand, but now I think it’s a great system: it keeps salaries low and at the same time it sets the hierarchy in motion. The worker gets half and the other half he has to thank the master by redoubling his servility.

About the city of Madrid.

12. Paquita must have been slightly older than the age at which a daughter from a good family, especially if she is graceful, intelligent and salubrious, is married or at least engaged. Otherwise, as was evidently the case here, she tended to be prudish, or to exaggerate an ease and independence that left no doubt about the voluntariness of her bachelorhood.

Another fragment of Catfight.

13. The truth is, in case any reader joins in the account of these wanderings without prior knowledge of my background, that in the past I was unjustly confined, although this is not relevant now, in a prison for mentally disturbed offenders and that this centre was run by Dr. Sugrañes for life with unkind methods.

The mess of the stock market and life.

14. The only thing I can assure you is that on no occasion, not even in the most critical Bretes, have I seen, as is often said, my whole life pass before me as if it were a film, which is always a relief, because it is bad enough to die watching Spanish cinema.

From the same work as the previous fragment.

15. He devoted his entire lecture to one painting: The death of Acteon. It was not one of the works exhibited in the Louvre, nor in any other museum. Apparently it belonged, and probably still does, to one lucky individual. (…) the professor was showing the different details of that curious mythological episode.

From the same work as the previous one, on a painting with unique details.

16. For a few years, and after some somewhat uneven beginnings, of which I left a written record, I ran a ladies’ hairdresser’s. From time to time, only an employee of La Caixa came to this part of the business with admirable regularity to claim the overdue installments of his successive loans.

The mystery of the haunted crypt.

17. Men are more obtuse: money and football have blocked their hypothalamus and do not circulate vital fluids. Women, on the other hand, as soon as they disconnect their mobile phones, they release the powers of the mind and those who are neglected have already achieved extrasensory perception.

A portrait of today’s world.

18. Life has taught me that I have a mechanism inserted in some place impervious to experience that prevents me from doing what could be of benefit to me and forces me to follow the most foolish impulses and the most harmful natural tendencies…

Mendoza, prey to carnal desires.

19. The only thing that was not left over was the money to pay so many people and the suppliers of raw materials. Madrid, according to a phrase coined by a satirical newspaper of the time, had the laces of the bag fastened with its teeth.

Another reflection on commercial activity in the Spanish capital.

20. Human beings, like insects, go through three phases or stages of development: children, working people and retirees. Children do what they are told to do, as well as working people, but in return, retired people receive a salary, but they are not allowed to do anything…

About the stages of life.

21. We are more given to work hard and to be blissful, detached, modest, courteous and affectionate and not tasteless, selfish, petulant, rude and sappy, as we would undoubtedly be if in order to survive we did not depend so much on falling into grace.

About the good nature of human beings.

22. People were unhappy before I was born and will be unhappy after I die. It is true that I have caused the misfortune of some, but have I been the real cause of that misfortune, or a mere agent of doom?

Another reflection from The City of Prodigies.

23. The language of human beings is laborious and puerile… They speak long and loudly, to the accompaniment of horrible gestures and grimaces. Even so, their capacity for expression is very limited, except in the area of blasphemy and profanity…

Noise instead of arguments.

24. I don’t know when I fell in love with you or how such a thing happened, because I try to remember and it seems to me that I have always loved you and I try to understand and I find no reason in the world not to love you.

A nice declaration of love.

25. This is not a poor country. This is a country of poor people. In a poor country, everyone makes do with what they have. Not here. Here, what you have or don’t have counts.

About Spain and its miseries.

26. It was admirable to see how those potentates, as hard hit by the financial crisis as I had just learned from reading a newspaper, continued to maintain the appearance of wastefulness and revelry with the sole purpose of not sowing discouragement in the stock markets.

About the stock market.

27. The first time I was attracted by the novelty. I read the notice in the press, and said to myself: Fulgencio, here is a companion of misfortune: out of her element, exposed to public scorn for a handful of silver.

Fragment of Three Lives of Saints.

28. The papers were talking about nothing else but this. Each one of the visitors, upon returning to his country, said, is converted into an apostle and propagator of all he has seen, heard, and learned.

Another great paragraph from The City of Wonders.

29. Oh, Barcelona, she said with a voice broken by emotion, how beautiful she is! And to think that when I first saw her of all this we see now there was almost nothing!

About his hometown, Barcelona.

30. In the end,” he concluded despondently, “I no longer knew what I was doing there. I only knew that whatever it was, it didn’t make any sense. -This thing you have just described,” I said, “is called work.

An absurd situation.

31. Because the Catalans always talk about the same thing, that is, work… There are no people on earth more fond of work than the Catalans. If they knew how to do something, they would be the masters of the world.

A rather pungent phrase against the mentality of the Catalan people.

32. The Spanish speak from the elbows. I’m doing it myself, you see. He kept silent for a moment to show that he could put a stop to the national vice and then continued to lower his voice.

In this fragment he talks about the Spanish idiosyncrasy.

33. At the table sat an old woman with a parchment face, so small and warm that it was difficult to distinguish her from the cushions and gualdrapas distributed irregularly around the piece to conceal the deterioration of the furniture.

Cat fight.

34. I prefer the barbarity of an inquisitor who is willing to burn a painting because he judges it to be sinful, to the indifference of someone who is only concerned with the dating, background or price of that same painting.

A matter of principle.

35. Throughout my existence I have been forced to solve some mysteries, always forced by circumstances and above all by people when those were in their hands.

Autobiographical phrase.

36. (…) Westerners are bad mathematicians. Look at Europe. Out of arrogance they go from being a set of provinces at war to becoming an empire. It exchanged national currency for euro and there began decadence and ruin.

One of those phrases by Eduardo Mendoza in which he explains some cultural characteristics.

37. Philosophy and religion are all very well, of course, but they are for the rich, and if one is rich, what do you want philosophy and religion for?

Curious reasoning.

38. Experience has taught me that, in an investigation such as the one I was carrying out, little is achieved with force or audacity and much with perseverance.

Being constant is the best way.

39. Actually, I’m the one who lost. I thought that by being bad I would have the world in my hands, and yet I was wrong: the world is worse than I am.

Little fragment of The City of Wonders.

40. José Antonio is inconsistent, the party has no program or social base, and his famous eloquence consists of talking to a salt shaker without saying anything concrete…

Madrid, 1936.

41. For centuries we had foreign domination and we starved to death. Now we have learned a lesson, we have known how to take advantage of opportunity, and we have become masters of half the world.

About the ethical misery in The Tangle of the Stock Exchange and Life.

42. Eastern rhetoric, too subtle, I admit. Often you don’t know what they’re talking about and they’ve already put it in you, as Sun Tzu used to say.

Sarcastic phrase to keep in mind.

43. With the same taste I would have eaten a portion of sardines, but I also had to give that up because spending money was not in my budget.

About the miseries of his early years.

44. He had a thick lower lip, pendulous and wet, which incited the rubbery back of the seals to get wet in it.

Describing one of the characters in The Truth about the Savolta Case.

45. Spring was announced by blowing into the air that fragrance which has some of the pleasant vertigo of madness…

From the same book as the previous fragment.

46. He had unlimited confidence in his ability to overcome any setback and to take advantage of any obstacle.

One of his most widely read works for young people: No News from Gurb.

47. (…) This fact had already been commented on in the capital’s newspapers. These same newspapers had come to the painful but unquestionable conclusion that this was to be the case. The communications between Barcelona and the rest of the world, both by sea and by land, make it more suitable than any other city on the Peninsula for attracting outsiders, they said.

Fragment of The City of Wonders.

48. Maria Rosa Savolta examined with a severe look the contradictory figure of the maid. What was that being of steppe rudeness and dolmen-like garb, flat, eyebrows, teeth and moustache doing in a room where each and every one of the objects rivaled each other in finesse and delicacy? And who would have put on that starched cap, those white gloves, that apron edged with pointed tips? the lady asked herself.

A mystery to be solved.

49. This award is a sign of success, and the pursuit of success is unreasonable. Before it is attained, success does not exist; it is only a cause of anxiety; but when it comes, it is worse: after it is attained, life does not stop and success overshadows it; no one can constantly repeat success and after a very short time success becomes a heavy burden; it is needed again, constantly, but now in the knowledge of its uselessness.

To be noted.

50. I believed that those who loved Me badly would not dare to attack My integrity in full light and in a crowded place, but would try to attract Me to where they could carry out their harmful purposes with all discretion. I had, therefore, to avoid solitude and night. The former was to be relatively easy, and the latter absolutely impossible, without a heavenly miracle which neither my beliefs nor my past conduct authorized me to perform.

About enemies and how to treat them.

51. We all find it difficult to recognize that in an already unrecoverable instant we bet everything on one turn of the roulette wheel before learning the rules of the game. I also believed that life was something else. Then we keep playing, winning and losing alternately, but nothing is the same anymore: the cards are already marked, the dice are loaded and the chips only change pockets for the duration of the evening. Life is like that and it is useless to describe it as unfair in hindsight.

A phrase to take it easy.

52. A criminal is not a hero, but an abject being who abuses the weakness of others. I was destined to follow this path to the saddest of ends if the casual encounter with literature had not opened a crack through which I could have gone out into a better world. I have nothing more to add. Literature can rescue gloomy lives and redeem terrible acts; conversely, terrible acts and degraded lives can rescue literature by breathing in a life that, if it did not possess it, would make it dead letter.

Literature in its purest form, from the pen of Eduardo Mendoza.

53. (…) Velázquez painted this picture at the end of his life. Velázquez’s greatest work and also his will. It is an upside-down portrait: it depicts a group of trivial characters: a girl, maids, dwarves, a dog, a couple of officials and the painter himself. In the mirror, the figure of the Kings, the representatives of power, is reflected in a blurred manner. They are outside the painting and, therefore, out of our lives, but they see everything, they control everything, and it is they who give the painting its raison d’être.

Madrid, 1936.

54. The author of the present article and those that will follow has set himself the task of revealing in a concise and accessible manner to the simple minds of the workers, even the most illiterate, those facts that, having been presented to the public in a dark and diffuse form, after the camouflage of rhetoric and the profusion of figures more appropriate to the understanding and comprehension of the learned than of the reader eager for clear truths and not for arithmetic, still remain ignored by the working masses who are, nevertheless, their main victims.

Another excerpt from The Truth about the Savolta Case, his magnum opus.

55. That leaves the army, of course. But Azaña knows him well: he has been a minister of war. He knows that the military, under their terrible appearance, are inconsistent, fickle, and malleable; on the one hand they threaten and criticize, and on the other they whimper to obtain promotions, assignments, and decorations; they get off on the pretext of perks, and are jealous of those of others; they all believe that another with less merit has passed them by; in short, they allow themselves to be fooled like children. (…) All the weapons (artillery, infantry, engineers) are there to kill each other, and it is enough for the Navy to do one thing, for the air force to do the opposite.

About the Madrid of the first half of the 20th century.

56. They are not reliable rumors, because they come, as always, from people who are envious or fanciful or stupid, or all three at once, but the mere fact that these people have come up with such an infusion indicates that the truth must not be far from the lie.

Never give credit to a rumor.

57. The waiter’s face was painted black as a result of the continual wiping of sweat from the glassware.

Description contained in The Tangle of Bag and Life.

58. Mind your ears,” I said in closing, “they always appear where you least expect them.

Excerpt from one of his books.

59. From that time I remember throwing time overboard with joy, in the hope that the balloon would take flight and lead me to a better future.

About your young times.

60. You always think better on a full stomach, say those with stomachs.

An ironic and thought-provoking phrase.

61. And what is the truth? Sometimes the opposite of a lie; at other times, the opposite of silence.

Sometimes just screaming embodies reality.

62. Sentiment is the root and sustenance of profound ideas.

Philosophical phrase about emotions.

63. No human conduct needs precedent to be possible.

Culture is everything, sometimes.

64. Early vocations are trees with many leaves, little trunk and less root.

Great poetic prose.

65. In literature class they taught us some things that didn’t help me much then and have helped me little today.

Unfortunately, interest in art and literature cannot be explained or taught.

66. I have sometimes wondered whether Don Quixote was mad, or whether he pretended to be so, in order to transgress the gates of a small, unsociable, and self-contained society.

The limits of madness and sanity.

67. I wanted to do as Alonso Quijano did: run the world, have impossible loves, and undo the wrongs.

Like Cervantes’ famous character.

68. There is another kind of humor in Cervantes’ writing, which is not so much in the writing or the dialogues as in the writer’s look.

Another reflection on the work of the manchego.

69. I believe I am a model of good sense and I believe that others are like a watering can, for this reason I live perplexed and frightened by how the world is.

About his view of things.

70. A novel is what it is: neither the truth nor the lie.

Not fiction, not reality, but a middle ground.