Nikos Kazantzakis

Nikos Kazantzakis (18 February 1883 – 26 October 1957) was a Greek novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.

Quotes

I am a mariner of Odysseus with heart of fire but with mind ruthless and clear.
- Toda Raba (1934), quoted in Kimon Friar's introduction to The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel (1958), p. xxvi

We are not simple people who believe in happiness; nor weaklings who crumple to the ground in distress at the first reverse; nor skeptics observing the bloody effort of marching humanity from the lofty heights of a mocking, sterile wit. Believing in the fight, though we entertain no illusions about it, we are armed against every disappointment.
- Toda Raba (1934), ch. 10 (tr. Amy Mims, 1964)

God, what is all this talk put out by the popes? Paradise is here, my good man. God, give me no other paradise!
- Freedom and Death (1956), ch. 3 (tr. Jonathan Griffin, 1956)

We, who are dying, are doing better, than they, who will live. For Crete doesn't need householders, she needs madmen like us. These madmen make Crete immortal.
- Freedom and Death (1956), ch. 13 (tr. Jonathan Griffin, 1956)

All my life I struggled to stretch my mind to the breaking point, until it began to creak, in order to create a great thought which might be able to give a new meaning to life, a new meaning to death, and to console mankind.
- "Odyssey of Faith" in TIME magazine (6 June 1960)

I said to the almond tree: "Speak to me of God."
And the almond tree blossomed.
- The Fratricides (1961), epigraph (tr. Athena Gianakas Dallas, 1964)

You gave me your curse, holy Fathers. I give you a blessing: May you be as moral and religious as I am.
- In response to attempts by leaders of the Greek Orthodox church to anathematize him, as quoted in God's Struggler: Religion in the Writings of Nikos Kazantzakis (1996) by Darren J. N. Middleton and Peter Bien, p. 12

The Saviors of God (1923)

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Main article: The Saviors of God

Nothing exists! Neither life nor death. I watch mind and matter hunting each other like two nonexistent erotic phantasms — merging, begetting, disappearing — and I say: "This is what I want!"
I know now: I do not hope for anything. I do not fear anything, I have freed myself from both the mind and the heart, I have mounted much higher, I am free. [Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα, δεν φοβούμαι τίποτα, λυτρώθηκα από το νου κι από την καρδιά, ανέβηκα πιο πάνω, είμαι λεύτερος.] This is what I want. I want nothing more. I have been seeking freedom.
- The Preparation: Third Duty
- This passage was used for Kazantzakis' epitaph: "Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα, δε φοβούμαι τίποτα, είμαι λεύτερος."
- "I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free."
- Variant translation: "I expect nothing. I fear no one. I am free."

The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel (1938)

Translated by Kimon Friar

O Sun, great Oriental, my proud mind's golden cap,
I love to wear you cocked askew and to burst in song
to rouse our hearts, so long as you and I both live.
- Prologue, line 1

With silent strides Odysseus then shot back the bolt,
passed lightly through the courtyard and sped down the street.
Some saw him take the graveyard's zigzag mountain path,
some saw him leap on rocks that edged the savage shore,
some visionaries saw him in the dead of night
swimming and talking secretly with the sea-demons,
but only a small boy saw him in a lonely dream
sit crouched and weeping by the dark sea's foaming edge.
- Book II, line 457

A woman's body is a dark and monstrous mystery;
between her supple thighs a heavy whirlpool swirls,
two rivers crash, and woe to him who slips and falls!
- Odysseus, Book II, line 1017

Death's dry bones glowed with light in the erotic dark
but he woke not nor felt the two warm bodies merge;
the male worm then took heart and in his wife's ear whispered:
"With one sweet kiss, dear wife, we've conquered conquering Death!"
- Orpheus' song, Book III, line 178

The worm stood straight on God's blood-splattered threshold then
and beat his drum, beat it again, and raised his throat:
'You've matched all well on earth, wine, women, bread, and song,
but why, you Murderer, must you slay our children? Why?'
God foamed with rage and raised his sword to pierce that throat,
but his old copper sword, my lads, stuck at the bone.
Then from his belt the worm drew his black-hilted sword,
rushed up and slew that old decrepit god in heaven!
And now, my gallant lads — I don't know when or how —
that worm's god-slaying sword has fallen into my hands;
I swear that from its topmost iron tip the blood still drips!
- Odysseus' song, Book III, line 424

The rosy mountain peaks laughed like high lustrous thoughts,
and Helen, speechless, raised her pale hands toward the sun
and joyed to feel its warm rays falling on her frozen palms.
- Book IV, line 1361

Thus did the Holy Harlots unhinge the brains of man,
and when they met and clashed with the pure Mountain Maidens,
they raised their white arms high, their armpits smelled of musk,
and, as the rites decreed, both fought their verbal war:
"God swoops from mountain peaks to eat and play on earth;
we are his food and drink and even his sacred toys —
and learn, O sterile maids, we are his soft, sweet mates.
Let her now leave who fears to merge with her dread God!"
The scornful savage mouth of Krino flashed reply:
"We will not leave! We guard the innocent soul of man!
God is a spirit with pure white wings, a soul that sails,
light, disembodied, deep in our thoughts, without embrace.
It's we who keep the world in bloom with virgin souls!"
- From the Bull Ritual, Book VI, line 197

High up where the poor sat, the people quaked with fear:
they saw the soul stretched on the ground, a votive beast
beaten by the conflicting powers of light and dark,
and their minds shook, nor knew now what great god to choose,
for comfort's road dropped to the right, the rough ascent
rose to the left, and both roads seemed to lead to God,
while at the crossroads stood the human heart, and swayed.
- Book VI, line 242

Thus night with all her snares passed through the upper world
and baited all heads sweetly, fed all foolish hopes,
for night can bring to men all shrewish day denies,
wrapped as a gift in the green leaves of opiate dream.
- Book VII, line 356

Death gestured with his hands and bade the king thrice welcome.
- Book VIII, line 168

Her green eyes fluttered swiftly twice or thrice, then glazed,
her mouth gaped open, bleating, then her jaws hung loose
and retched up all her soul in lumps of clotting blood.
- Death of Phida, Book VIII, line 410

Speak straight and clear! I only hear that manly prayer
which like a huge fist breaks my head against the stones.
- Odysseus, Book VIII, line 530

Who holds a sword is tempted, who has youth must play,
he who does not fear death on earth does not fear God.
- Odysseus, Book VIII, line 560

Alas for him who seeks salvation in good only!
Balanced on God's strong shoulders, Good and Evil flap
together like two mighty wings and lift him high.
- Odysseus, Book VIII, line 770

But we, O blockhead, with dogged spite and armored love
shall force those deaf dark powers to grow ears and hear us!
I know that God is earless, eyeless, and heartless too,
a brainless Dragon Worm that crawls on earth and hopes
in anguish and then in secret that we'll give him soul,
for then he, too, may sprout ears, eyes, to match his growth,
but God is clay in my ten fingers, and I mould him!
- Odysseus to Kentaur, Book VIII, line 829

Blessed are those eyes that have seen more water than any man!
Blessed be that haughty mind that aimed at the greatest hope!
May you be blessed who row the current your life long
and now with dry unfreshened lips descend to Hades
to find the hidden deathless springs and slake your thirst!
My son, it's death who keeps and pours the deathless waters.
- Voice of the Nile, from Odysseus' story, Book VIII, line 1290
- The first line is taken from an Egyptian hieroglyph

May he be cursed on earth who gives his trust to virtue,
that bankrupt crone who takes our life's pure gold and gives
but bad receipts for payment in the lower world.
Ah, passers-by that stroll, travelers that come and go,
all that I had, I placed on virtue, and lost the game!
- Book IX, line 402

A slave's soul has no worth, my brothers; it lacks strength
to tread on this great earth with gallantry and freedom.
I pity the poor slaves, they're nought but airy mist,
a light breeze scatters them, a fragrance knocks them down;
it's only just they crawl on the earth on hands and knees.
Today I'll write a hymn to God and pray for this great grace.
- Egyptian high priest, Book X, line 90

Cursed be all those on land and sea who eat their fill,
cursed be all those who starve yet raise no hand in protest,
cursed be all the bread, the wine, the meat which day by day
descends deep in the entrails of the exploited man
and turns not into freedom's cry, the murderer's ruthless knife!
- Prayer of three revolutionaries, Book X, line 391

Fools, art is a heavy task, more heavy than gold crowns;
it's far more difficult to match firm words than armies,
they're disciplined troops, unconquered, to be placed in rhythm,
the mind's most mighty foe, and not disperse in air.
I'd give, believe me, a whole land for one good song,
for I know well that only words, that words alone,
like the high mountains, have no fear of age or death.
- Pharaoh, Book X, line 688

Comrades, I've voyaged long and far on sea and soul,
my eyes have seen disease, gods, ghosts, and men, and yet
in no land have I seen a more false, murderous siren
than that wind-headed, babbling, blind bitch-hound called Hope!
- Odysseus, Book X, line 892

Monarch of earth, I shall confess my secret craft:
I've always fought to purify wild flame to light,
and kindle whatever light I found to burst in flame.
- Odysseus to Hades, Book XI, line 145

Crocodiles sweetly shut their lidded eyes, and yawned,
for the blond meat had been quite good, and in slow rains
new flesh would sprout once more and then be munched anew.
- Book XI, line 652

Descend you weary-laden, descend in the dark earth,
help me to finish swiftly my dread master's shroud,
let each hem hold my pain, each corner hide a crow,
a lean, voracious crow to peck his heart out bit by bit.
- Slave's prayer, Book XI, line 708

I hate all virtues based on food and bloated bellies;
though food and drink are good, I'm better slaked and fed
by that inhuman flame which burns in our black bowels.
I like to name that flame which burns within me God!
- Odysseus, Book XI, line 840

I've fought with men and gods, I've weighed them well and found
the sea more firm than earth, the air more firm than sea,
and man's impalpable soul still yet more firm than air!
- Odysseus, Book XI, line 846

Zorba the Greek (1946)

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Main article: Zorba the Greek

To cleave that sea in the gentle autumnal season, murmuring the name of each islet, is to my mind the joy most apt to transport the heart of man into paradise.
- On the Aegean Sea, in Ch. 2

Two equally steep and bold paths may lead to the same peak. To act as if death did not exist, or to act thinking every minute of death, is perhaps the same thing.
- Ch. 3

While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it we do suddenly realize — sometimes with astonishment — how happy we had been.
- Ch. 6

How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. ... All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.
- Ch. 7

Every village has its simpleton, and if one does not exist they invent one to pass the time.
- Ch. 8

In religions which have lost their creative spark, the gods eventually become no more than poetic motifs or ornaments for decorating human solitude and walls.
- Ch. 12

As I watched the seagulls, I thought: "That's the road to take; find the absolute rhythm and follow it with absolute trust."
- Ch. 21

What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.
- Ch. 23

The highest point a man can obtain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!
- Ch. 24

The Last Temptation of Christ (1955)

Translated by Peter A. Bien

This is the Supreme Duty of the man who struggles — to set out for the lofty peak which Christ, the first-born son of salvation, attained. How can we begin?
If we are to follow him we must have a profound knowledge of his conflict, we must relive his anguish: his victory over the blossoming snares of the earth, his sacrifice of the great and small joys of men and his ascent from sacrifice to sacrifice, exploit to exploit, to martyrdom's summit, the Cross.
- Prologue

I wanted to offer a supreme model to the man who struggles; I wanted to show him that he must not fear pain, temptation or death — because all three can be conquered, all three have already been conquered.
- Prologue

This book is not a biography; it is the confession of every man who struggles. In publishing it I have fulfilled my duty, the duty of a person who struggled much, was embittered in his life, and had many hopes. I am certain that every free man who reads this book, so filled as it is with love, will more than ever before, love Christ.
- Prologue

The more devils we have within us, the more chance we have to form angels.
- Ch. 10

Do you believe in dreams, Uncle Simeon? I do; I believe in nothing else. One night I dreamed that invisible enemies had me tied to a dead cypress. Long red arrows were sticking into me from my head to my feet, and the blood was flowing. On my head they had placed a crown of thorns, and intertwined with the thorns were fiery letters which said: "Saint Blasphemer." I am Saint Blasphemer, Rabbi Simeon. So you'd better not ask me anything else, or I'll start my blasphemies.
- Ch. 10

There's a devil inside me which cries, "You're not the son of the Carpenter, you're the son of King David! You are not a man, you are the Son of man whom Daniel prophesied." And still more: "The Son of God! And still more: God!"
- Ch. 10

Outside the wind of Jehovah still beat on the door, trying to enter. There was no other sound. Not a jackal on the earth, nor a crow in the air. Every living thing cowered in fear, waiting for the Lord's anger to pass.
- Ch. 10

If you love me, be patient. Look at the trees. Are they in a hurry to ripen their fruit?
- Ch. 17

I possess no weapon but love. With that I have come to do battle. Help me!
- Ch. 17

The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical.
- Ch. 18

I said only one word, brought only one message: Love. Love — nothing else.
- Ch. 32

How can anyone see the only way the world can be saved and not be forced to weep?
- Ch. 32

Report to Greco (1965)

The first English edition was translated and published by Bruno Cassirer, Oxford (1965); this section uses primarily the translation by P. A. Bien, Faber and Faber Limited (1973)

My entire soul is a cry, and all my work the commentary on that cry.
- Author's Introduction, p. 15

Every man worthy of being called a son of man bears his cross and mounts his Golgotha. Many, indeed most, reach the first or second step, collapse pantingly in the middle of the journey, and do not attain the summit of Golgotha, in other words the summit of their duty: to be crucified, resurrected, and to save their souls. Afraid of crucifixion, they grow fainthearted; they do not know that the cross is the only path to resurrection. There is no other path.
- Author's Introduction, p. 15

Three kinds of souls, three prayers:
1) I am a bow in your hands, Lord. Draw me, lest I rot.
2) Do not overdraw me, Lord. I shall break.
3) Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break.
- Epigraph, p. 16

General, the battle draws to a close and I make my report. This is where and how I fought. I fell wounded, lost heart, but did not desert. Though my teeth clattered from fear, I bound my forehead tightly with a red handkerchief to hide the blood, and ran to the assault.
Before you shall pluck out the precious feathers of my jackdaw soul, one by one, until it remains a tiny clod of earth kneaded with blood, sweat, and tears. I shall relate my struggle to you — in order to unburden myself. I shall cast off virtue, shame, and truth — in order to unburden myself. My soul resembles your creation "Toledo in the Storm"; girded by yellow thunderbolts and oppressive black clouds, fighting a desperate, unbending battle against both light and darkness. You will see my soul, will weigh it between your lanceolate eyebrows, and will judge. Do you remember the grave Cretan saying, "Return where you have failed, leave where you have succeeded"? If I failed, I shall return to the assault though but a single hour of life remains to me. If I succeeded, I shall open the earth so that I may come and recline at your side.
Listen, therefore, to my report, general, and judge. Listen to my life, grandfather, and if I fought with you, if I fell wounded and allowed no one to learn of my suffering, if I never turned my back to the enemy: Give me your blessing!
- "Prologue", p. 23

"Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality," says one of my favorite Byzantine mystics. I did this when a child; I do it now as well in the most creative moments of my life.
- "The Son", Ch. 4, p. 45

I thank God that this refreshing childhood vision still lives inside me in all its fullness of color and sound. This is what keeps my mind untouched by wastage, keeps it from withering and running dry. It is the sacred drop of immortal water which prevents me from dying. When I wish to speak of the sea, woman, or God in my writing, I gaze down in my breast and listen carefully to what the child within me says. He dictates to me; and if it sometimes happens that I come close to these great forces of the sea, woman, and God, approach them by means of words and depict them, I owe it to the child who still lives within me. I become a child again to enable myself to view the world always for the first time, with virgin eyes.
- "The Son", Ch. 4, p. 49

Every word is an adamantine shell which encloses a great explosive force. To discover its meaning you must let it burst inside you like a bomb and in this way liberate the soul which it imprisons.
- "Massacre", Ch. 10, p. 88

A magical portal opened inside my mind and conducted me into an astonishing world. … Before this moment I had divined but had never known with such positiveness that the world is extremely large and that suffering and toil are the companions and fellow warriors not only of Cretan, but of every man. … that by means of poetry all this suffering and effort could be transformed into dream; no matter how much of the ephemeral existed, poetry could immortalize it by turning it into song.
- "Naxos", Ch. 11, p. 96

I felt that human partitions — bodies, brains, and souls — were capable of being demolished, and that humanity might return again, after frightfully bloody wandering, to its primeval, divine oneness. In this condition, there is no such thing as "me", "you", and "he"; everything is a unity and this unity is a profound mystic intoxication in which death loses its scythe and ceases to exist. Separately, we die one by one, but all together we are immortal. Like prodigal sons, after so much hunger, thirst, and rebellion, we spread our arms and embrace our two parents: heaven and earth.
- "Liberty", Ch. 12, p. 105

Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive.
- "Italy", Ch. 18, p. 179

Once more I realized to what an extent earthly happiness is made to the measure of man. It is not a rare bird which we must pursue at one moment in heaven, at the next in our minds. Happiness is a domestic bird found in our own courtyards.
- "Italy", Ch. 18, p. 182

How difficult, how extremely difficult for the soul to sever itself from its body the world: from mountains, seas, cities, people. The soul is an octopus and these are its tentacles. … No force anywhere on earth is as imperialistic as the human soul. It occupies and is occupied in turn, but it always considers its empire too narrow. Suffocating, it desires to conquer the world in order to breathe freely.
- "My Friend The Poet. Mount Athos", Ch. 19, p. 188

As long as our souls remain strong, that is all that matters; as long as they don't decline. Because with the fall of certain souls in this world, the world itself will collapse. These are the pillars which support it. They are few, but enough.
- "My Friend Poet. Mount Athos", Ch. 19, p. 215

One day our Sodom and Gomorrah would be trampled by some all-powerful foot, and this world which laughed, reveled, and forgot God would be transformed, in its turn, into a Dead Sea. At the end of every period God's foot comes along in this way and tramples the cities of the overindulged belly, the overdeveloped mind. I felt afraid (Sometimes it seems to me that this world is another Sodom and Gomorrah just before God's passage above it. I think the terrible foot can already be heard approaching).
- "Jerusalem", Ch. 20, p. 249

Sodom and Gomorrah reclined along the riverbank like two whores kissing each other. Men copulated with other men, women with other women, men with mares, women with bulls. They ate and overate from the Tree of Life; they ate and overate from the Tree of Knowledge. Smashing their sacred statues, they saw that they were filled with air. Coming very, very close to God, they said, "This God is not the father of Fear, he is the son of Fear," and they lost their fear. On the four gates to the city they wrote in large yellow letters, THERE IS NO GOD HERE. What does There is no God mean? It means there is no bridle on our instincts, no reward for good or punishment for evil, no virtue, shame, or justice — that we are wolves and she-wolves in heat.
- "Jerusalem", Ch. 20, pp. 249-50

How can anyone have a true sense of the Hebrew race without crossing this terrifying desert, without experiencing it? For three interminable days we crossed it on our camels. Your throat sizzles from thirst, your head reels, your mind spins about as serpent-like you follow the sleek tortuous ravine. When a race is forged for two score years in this kiln, how can such a race die? I rejoiced at seeing the terrible stones where the Hebrews' virtues were born: their perseverance, will power, obstinacy, endurance, and above all, a God flesh of their flesh, flame of their flame, to whom they cried, "Feed us! Kill our enemies! Lead us to the Promised Land!"
To this desert the Jews owe their continued survival and the fact that by means of their virtues and vices they dominate the world. Today, in the unstable period of wrath, vengeance, and violence through which we are passing, the Jews are of necessity once again the chosen people of the terrible God of Exodus from the land of bondage.
- "Jerusalem", Ch. 20, p. 265

Inhuman solitude made of sand and God. Surely only two kinds of people can bear to live in such desert: lunatics and prophets. The mind topples here not from fright but from sacred awe; sometimes it collapses downward, losing human stability, sometimes it springs upward, enters heaven, sees God face to face, touches the hem of His blazing garment without being burned, hears what He says, and taking this, slings it into men's consciousness. Only in the desert do we see the birth of these fierce, indomitable souls who rise up in rebellion even against God himself and stand before Him fearlessly, their minds in resplendent consubstantiality with the skirts of the Lord. God sees them and is proud, because in them his breath has not vented its force; in them, God has not stooped to becoming a man.
- "The Desert. Sinai", Ch. 21, p. 276

Whoever climbed the Lord's mountain had to possess clean hands and an innocent heart; otherwise the Summit would kill him. Today the doorway is deserted. Soiled hands and sinful hearts are able to pass by without fear, for the Summit kills no longer.
- "The Desert. Sinai", Ch. 21, p. 277

"Tomorrow, go forth and stand before the Lord. A great and strong wind will blow over you and rend the mountains and break in pieces the rocks, but the Lord will not be in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord will not be in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord will not be in the fire. And after the fire a gentle, cooling breeze. That is where the Lord will be."
This is how the spirit comes. After the gale, the earthquake, and fire: a gentle, cooling breeze. This is how it will come in our own day as well. We are passing through the period of earthquake, the fire is approaching, and eventually (when? after how many generations?) the gentle, cool breeze will blow.
- "The Desert. Sinai.", Ch. 21, p. 278

I heard the bells from the future churches, the children playing and laughing in the schoolyards … and here was an almond tree in bloom before me: I must reach out and cut a flowering branch. For, by believing passionately in something which still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired, whatever we have not irrigated with our blood to such a degree that it becomes strong enough to stride across the somber threshold of nonexistence.
- p. 434; in a few publications since 2008 part of this has been misattributed to Franz Kafka: "By believing passionately in something which still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired."

Attributed

Every perfect traveller always creates the country where he travels.
- As quoted in Reporter in Red China (1966) by Charles Taylor

The major and almost only theme of all my work is the struggle of man with "God": the unyielding, inextinguishable struggle of the naked worm called "man" against the terrifying power and darkness of the forces within him and around him.
- As quoted in Nikos Kazantzakis (1968) by Helen Kazantzakis, p. 507

Having seen that I was not capable of using all my resources in political action, I returned to my literary activity. There lay the battlefield suited to my temperament. I wanted to make my novels the extension of my own father's struggle for liberty. But gradually, as I kept deepening my responsibility as a writer, the human problem came to overshadow political and social questions. All the political, social, and economic improvements, all the technical progress cannot have any regenerating significance, so long as our inner life remains as it is at present. The more the intelligence unveils and violates the secrets of Nature, the more the danger increases and the heart shrinks.
- As quoted in Nikos Kazantzakis (1968) by Helen Kazantzakis, p. 529

A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free.
- As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 412

You have your brush, you have your colours, you paint paradise, then, in you go.
- As quoted in Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 2, No. 2, Nikos Kazantzakis (1971-1972)

Disputed

There is only one woman in the world. One woman, with many faces.
- This occurs in the film The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), based upon the novel by Kazantzakis, but has not been located in the novel itself.

Misattributed

In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can.
- Michael Korda, Success! (1977), p. 284

Quotes about Kazantzakis

Like Teresa of Avila, Kazantzakis indicates that behind all appearances lies a struggling divine essence (the "Invisible") that is striving to merge with our hearts just as the mystic is striving to merge with God's. Nonetheless God's striving is on a cosmic scale such that there is something trivial involved when we push anthropocentric images too far in our description of God. Behind any religious face like Buddha's or Confucius's or Jesus' lies the awesome reality of the Tao of the Great Spirit or God — the Great Ecstatic. … We must tame some passions to unleash some others in Kazantzakis's religious eroticism. But no human passion is sufficient to put God under our thumbs. Kazantzakis defines "God" in Spain as "the Power that always gives us more than we are able to receive and always asks for more than we are able to give."
- Daniel A. Dombrowski, Kazantzakis and God (1997), p. 87

Kazantzakis is very clear about his belief in some "mystic law" at work in the world. … It must be admitted that Kazantzakis is at least tempted by nihilism and atheism. But … there are too many passages in his oeuvre where he makes it clear he does not want a merely human "god." Nor does he want a "god" who would be limited by our puny imagination. It is those who turn Kazantzakis's partial criticism (and partial appropriation) of traditional theism into an agnosticism or atheism who are unfaithful to Kazantzakis's texts. … neither a pantheistic nor a Buddhist/nihilist interpretation can stand up under the the weight of Kazantzakis's many writings about God.
- Daniel A. Dombrowski, Kazantzakis and God (1997), p. 88

I am suggesting that, for Kazantzakis, it is God who is "Immortal." What this means is that Kazantzakis is searching neither for heaven nor Nirvana nor ataraxia. Kazantzakis believes in matter, or better, in the transformation of matter into spirit and in the attachment of an embodied human being to spirit as if fastened by a nail. The (nonanthropocentric) "God" of Kazantzakis is a name given to a dark force at work in the world that in many ways is more like an agitated Yahweh or God the Father than like an anesthetic or passive receiver of human woes. In any event, Kazantzakis's theism is Buddhist if what you mean by Buddhism includes a consideration of the aforementioned Unborn or Undying, and it is in the Abrahamic tradition if what one means by Judaism, Christianity, or Islam is an an embracing of mysticism… Bien puts Kazantzakis's mysticism into focus when he says that human knowing (gnosis) — "You and I are one, Lord" — is necessarily followed by unknowing (agnosis) — "Even this one does not exist." The former element is reminiscent of the kataphatic tradition of Christian mysticism, otherwise known as the via positiva. But the latter element does not necessarily lead to nihilism, as some scholars allege, in that it is part of traditional apophatic theology or the via negativa. This negativity is not absolute, but rather indicative of the psychic renewal consistent with Buddhism and Christianity (including Greek Orthodoxy). It is a "rest in the life force's evolution toward ever-increasing value."
- Daniel A. Dombrowski, Kazantzakis and God (1997), p. 89

... as Nikos Kazantzakis once wrote, 'Art is the representation not of the body but of the forces which created the body.'
- Nadine Gordimer, "Writing and Being", Nobel Lecture (7 December 1991)

The focal point of Greek-American cultural interest has definitely shifted in recent decades. Where formerly there was a somewhat affected and strained focus on classical Hellas, the contemporary awareness is much more in tune with the literature of modern Greece. This shift has almost been entirely due to the increasing availability of English translations of modern Greek writings, for not many American-born Greeks comfortably read novels or poetry in the original Greek. The beginnings of the new mood can be traced to the translations of the novels of Nikos Kazantzakis in the 1950s. These also stimulated interest in other Greek writers, notably the poets Constantine P. Cavafy, a product of the Greek diaspora in Alexandria, Egypt, and George Seferis, who won the Nobel literature prize in 1963.
- Peter C. Moskos, Greek Americans: Struggle and Success (2013)

In contrast to Hesse, I think about Kazantzakis, who is not as deep as Hesse, but has some human warmth, some Greek sunshine, in his prose. To me he speaks with a Jewish heart. I approve of Hesse; I love Kazantzakis.
- Chava Rosenfarb "Australian Notes, 1974" in Confessions of a Yiddish Writer and Other Essays, translated from the Yiddish with Goldie Morgentaler

External links

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Nikos Kazantzakis