Stalker (1979)

Anatoliy Solonitsyn: Pisatel

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Quotes 

• Writer : My conscience wants vegetarianism to win over the world. And my subconscious is yearning for a piece of juicy meat. But what do I want?

• Writer : A man writes because he is tormented, because he doubts. He needs to constantly prove to himself and the others that he's worth something. And if I know for sure that I'm a genius? Why write then? What the hell for?

• Writer : [subtitled version]  While I am digging for the truth, so much happens to it that instead of discovering the truth I dig up a heap of, pardon... I'd better not name it.

• Stalker : The Zone is a very complicated system of traps, and they're all deadly. I don't know what's going on here in the absence of people, but the moment someone shows up, everything comes into motion. Old traps disappear and new ones emerge. Safe spots become impassable. Now your path is easy, now it's hopelessly involved. That's the Zone. It may even seem capricious. But it is what we've made it with our condition. It happened that people had to stop halfway and go back. Some of them even died on the very threshold of the room. But everything that's going on here depends not on the Zone, but on us!

  Writer : So it lets the good ones pass and kills the bad ones?

  Stalker : I don't know. I think it lets those pass who have lost all hope. Not good or bad, but wretched people. But even the most wretched will die if they don't know how to behave. You have been lucky, it just warned you.

• Writer : You put your heart and soul into your work and they devour you. They even devour the filth in your soul. They're all literate. They all have voracious appetites. They all keep crowding round - journalists, editors, critics, a constant stream of women. All of them clamoring for more. What kind of writer am I if I detest writing? It it's torture for me, a painful, shameful occupation, something akin to extruding hemorrhoids. I used to think my books helped people to become better, but nobody needs me. If I die, in a couple of days, they'll find someone else to devour. I wanted to change them, but they've changed me to fit their own image.

• Writer : Some bastard abuses you, you're hurt. A different bastard praises you, you're hurt.

• Writer : Listen, Chingachgook. You've brought so many people here.

  Stalker : Not as many as I would like.

  Writer : It doesn't matter. Why did they come? What were they after?

  Stalker : Happiness, more than anything.

  Writer : Yes, but what kind of happiness?

  Stalker : People don't like to reveal their innermost thoughts. Anyway, that concerns neither you nor me.

  Writer : You've been lucky. All my life, I have never seen one happy person.

  Stalker : Nor have I. They return from the Room and I guide them back. And we never meet again. Wishes don't come true immediately, you know.

  Writer : And you've never wanted to make use of this Room?

  Stalker : I'm fine as I am.

• Writer : All your technology, all those blast furnaces, wheels, and suchlike hustle and bustle, so that people can work less and consume more, they're all crutches, artificial limbs. Mankind exists in order to - to create works of art. At least that's unselfish compared with all other human activities. Great illusions. Images of absolute truth. Are you listening to me, Professor?

  Professor : What unselfishness are you talking about? People keep dying of hunger. Have you been living on the moon?

• Writer : No single individual can have enough hatred or love to spread over all mankind. You desire money, a woman. Or you want your boss to get run over. That's neither here nor there. But world domination, a just society, the kingdom of heaven on earth. Those aren't desires, but an ideology, actions, concepts. Subconscious compassion cannot yet be realized as a common instinctive desire.

• Writer : You dream of one thing and get something quite different.

• Writer : No one in the world has a conception about the Zone, so it'll be a sensation. Television, you lady fans getting hot flashes, people carrying brooms as if they were laurel wreaths. Then our professor appears all in whit and declaims, "Mene, mene. Tekel upharsin." Naturally, everyone gapes and shouts, "Give him the Nobel Prize!"

  Professor : You bedraggled hack writer. You homegrown psychologist. Fit only to scribble graffiti in lavatories, you talentless clod.

  Writer : That's feeble stuff. Call that an insult? You don't know how it's done.

  Professor : All right. Suppose I'm after a Nobel Prize. What are you after? Want to bestow on mankind the pearls of your bought inspiration?

  Writer : I spit on mankind. In all of mankind, only one man interests me. And that's me. Am I worth anything or am I shit like certain other people?

  Professor : What if you find out that's indeed what you are?

  Writer : Know something, Einstein? I don't want to argue with you.

  Professor : Truth is born in arguments, damn it.

• Writer : What I said about going there, it's all a lie. I don't give a damn about inspiration. But how can I put a name to - what it is that I want? How am I to know I don't want what I want or that I really don't want what I don't want? These are intangibles where the moment you name them, their meaning evaporates like jellyfish in the sun.

• Professor : Why don't you teach me the meaning of life and, at the same time, how to think.

  Writer : It's useless.

• Writer : Once, the future was only a continuation of the present. All its changes loomed somewhere beyond the horizon. But now the future's a part of the present.

• Writer : Here will come true that which reflects the essence of your nature it is within you, it governs you, yet you are ignorant of it. You've understood nothing. Greed didn't do Porcupine in. He crawled on his knees to plead for his brother. But he got a pile of money, he couldn't get anything else. Porcupine was given the essence of his true nature. Conscience and soul-searching were all invented by the mind. When he realized all that, he hanged himself. I won't go into your Room. I don't want to pour the filth in my soul on to anyone's head, even yours and then hang myself as Porcupine did. Better to drink myself to death in my stinking private writer's villa. No, Big Serpent, you're a bad judge of human nature if you bring people like me into the Zone.

• Writer : My dear, the world is so unutterably boring. There's no telepathy, no ghosts, no flying saucers. They can't exist. The world is ruled by cast-iron laws. These laws are not broken. They just can't be broken. Don't hope for flying saucers. That would be too interesting.

• Writer : You're a bad judge of human nature if you bring people like me into the Zone.

• Stalker : So you've been drinking?

  Writer : I simply had a drink, as does half of all humanity. And the other half also gets drunk, including women and children. I simply had a drink.

• Writer : I seldom think, it's bad for me.

  Professor : It's impossible to write and keep thinking about success or failure?

  Writer : Naturally. But on the other hand, if my books aren't being read in 100 years, why bother to write?

• Writer : Won't they come after us?

  Stalker : No, they're scared to death of it.

  Writer : Of what?

  [no response] 

• Writer : What comes true here is that which reflects the essence of your nature. It is within you. It governs you.

• Stalker : Take it away.

  Writer : Of course, the prohibition law. "Alcohol is the scourge of mankind." Let's drink beer then.

• Writer : Tell me, Professor, why did you get involved in this business? What's the Zone to you?

  Professor : Well, in a sense, I'm a scientist. What's in it for you? A fashionable author, women dropped all over you.

  Writer : I've lost my inspiration. I'm going to beg for some.

  Professor : So you've exhausted your talent?

  Writer : What? Yes, in a way.

• Professor : Stalking is a kind of vocation.

  Writer : I imagined stalkers to be different.

  Professor : How so?

  Writer : Like Leatherstocking or Chingachgook or Big Snake.

• Writer : Forget your rucksack. What's in it? Diamonds? You'll lose your way. The Room will give you all you desire. It will snow you under with rucksacks.

• Writer : The main thing is that the professor's rucksack and spare pants are safe.

  Professor : Don't poke your nose into another guy's drawers - if you know what I mean.

• Writer : Suppose I return to our godforsaken city a genius. Understand? But a man writes because he's tormented, unsure of himself. He has to keep proving his worth to himself and to others. But if I'm convinced I'm a genius - then why do I need to write?

• Stalker : You certainly are lucky. Now you'll live to be a hundred!

  Writer : Why not forever? Like a Wandering Jew.

• Fine Lady with the Writer : You said that the Zone is the product of a super civilization...

  Writer : Which is probably also boring, also with laws and triangles, but without goblins and, of course, without any God.

• Writer : Don't fool yourself. I don't forgive you.

• Writer : I simply had a drink, as does half of all humanity. And the other half also gets drunk, including women and children.