Dejan Stojanovic, Serbian Satire and Aphorisms

"Almost as a rule, political dissidents were writers."

"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."

"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."

"Bureaucracy is a huge beast; deeply rooted, it exists even among artists; it’s an almost losing battle against it."

"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?"

"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."

"There are those who speak and those who dream."

"A poem is its own name and cover."

"There are anonymous poems and poets without poems."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"The length of novels, poems and stories, is measured by the number of missing words; a thousand pages become one, one becomes a thousand."

"Knowing how to dream is more important than the story, because the story tells itself."

"An unrewarded value is more valuable than a reward with no value."

"In a real poem a sound does not swallow a letter, but a letter swallows a sound."

"The name does not deserve the poem, but the poem deserves the name."

"A poem does not radiate from the name, but the name emanates from the poem."

"A poem that is itself a name does not yearn for the name of its creator, but shines from its name alone."