The Rings of Saturn

by W.G. Sebald

to be gnaw’d out of our graves is a tragical abomination. But, he adds, who is to know the fate of his bones, or how often he is to be buried?

for who knows how many of the best of men have gone without a trace?

They just want to be in a place where they have the world behind them, and before them nothing but emptiness.

One sees the places where they live and the roads that link them, one sees the smoke rising from their houses and factories, one sees the vehicles in which they sit, but one sees not the people themselves. And yet they are present everywhere upon the face of the earth, extending their dominion by the hour,

Like our bodies and like our desires, the machines we have devised are possessed of a heart which is slowly reduced to embers.

After all, every foot traveller incurs the suspicion of the locals, especially nowadays, and particularly if he does not fit the image of a local rambler.

Scarcely am I in company but it seems as if I had already heard the same opinions expressed by the same people somewhere or other, in the same way, with the same words, turns of phrase and gestures.

Is it not wrong to squander one’s chance of happiness in order to indulge a talent?

Memories lie slumbering within us for months and years, quietly proliferating, until they are woken by some trifle and in some strange way blind us to life.