Concrete Quotes

“Whatever condition we are in, we must always do what we want to do, and if we want to go on a journey, then we must do so and not worry about our condition, even if it's the worst possible condition, because, if it is, we're finished anyway, whether we go on the journey or not, and it's better to die having made the journey we're been longing for than to be stifled by our longing.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“Very often we write down a sentence too early, then another too late; what we have to do is write it down at the proper time, otherwise it's lost.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“The only friends I have are the dead who have bequeathed their writings to me--I have no others.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“Parents have a child, and in doing so they bring into the world a monster that kills everything it comes in contact with.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“People keep a dog and are ruled by this dog, and even Schopenhauer was ruled in the end not by his head, but by his dog. This fact is more depressing than any other.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“The only friends I have are the dead who have bequeathed their writings to me - I have no others. And I'd always found it hard to have any relationship with another person - I wouldn't think of using such an unappetizing word as friendship, a word which is misused by everybody. And even early in my life there were times when I had no one - I at least knew that I had no one, though others were always asserting that I did have someone. They said, You do have someone, whereas I knew for certain that I not only had no one, but - what was perhaps the crucial and most annihilating thought - needed no one. I imagined I needed no one, and this is what I still imagine to this day. I needed no one, and so I had no one. But naturally we do need someone, otherwise we inevitably become what I have become: tiresome, unbearable, sick - impossible, in the profoundest sense of the word.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“I must have made a pitiful, indeed pitiable impression on an observer, though there was none – unless I'm going to say that I am an observer of myself, which is stupid, since I am my own observer anyway: I've actually been observing myself for years, if not for decades; my life now consists only of self-observation and self-contemplation, which naturally leads to self-condemnation, self-rejection and self-mockery. For years I have lived in this state of self-condemnation, self-abnegation and self mockery, in which ultimately I always have to take refuge in order to save myself. But all the time I ask myself what I have to save myself from?”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“Time destroys everything we do, whatever it is.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“I don't belong to the masses, I've been against the masses all my life, and I'm not in favour of dogs.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“We see so much sadness if we care to look.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“We publish only to satisfy out craving for fame; there's no other motive except the even baser one of making money....”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“I’d always cared extremely little for public opinion because I was always obsessed with my own opinion and hence had no time at all for the public’s.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“On the one hand we can't be alone, people like us; on the other we can't stand company. We can't stand male company, which bores us to death, or female company either. I gave up male company for years because it's totally unprofitable, and female company gets on my nerves in no time.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“People seek the society of others who are exciting, disconcerting and volatile, who are never the same from one moment to the next and usually change complexion completely.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“Prijatelja nisam nikada ni želeo da imam, otkako sam navršio dvadesetu i tako odjednom postao nezavistan mislilac. Jedini moji prijatelji su oni, mrtvi koji su mi ostavili svoju književnost, drugih nemam. I oduvek mi je bilo teško imati nekoga i stoga uopšte ne mislim na tako zloupotrebljavanu i mučnu reč, kao što je reč prijateljstvo. I već vrlo rano na mahove uopšte nisam nikoga imao, svi drugi su imali nekoga, ja nisam imao nikoga, bar sam znao da nemam nikoga iako su drugi još insistirali na tome da imam nekoga, govorili su imaš nekoga kad sam bio sasvim siguran da nemam nikoga i, možda je odlučila i najviše me uništila upravo misao da mi niko nije potreban. Umislio sam da mi nijedno ljudsko biće ne treba, to i danas umišljam. Niko mi nije trebao, pa prema tome nikoga nisam ni imao. Ali, kako je prirodno, neko ljudsko biće nam je potrebno inače neizbežno postajemo ovakvi kakav sam postao ja: teški, nesnosni, bolesni, u najdubljem značenju reči nemogući. Uvek sam verovao da duhovni rad mogu da obavljam samo sasvim sam, bez ikoga, što je moralo da se pokaže kao zabluda, ali i da nam je neko potreban takođe je zabluda, zato nam je potreban neko i nije nam potreban niko i nekada nam je potreban neko, a nekad nam nije potreban niko, i nekada nam je potreban neko, a istovremeno nam nije potreban niko, sada, ovih dana, opet sam se uverio u tu činjenicu, najapsurdniju od svih; nikada ne znamo, baš nikada, da li nam treba neko ili nam ne treba niko, ili nam u isto vreme treba i neko, i niko, i, kako nam nikada, baš nikada, nije jasno šta izistinski trebamo, da li smo nesrećni i zato nesposobni da otpočnemo neki duhovni rad onda kad mi to hoćemo, kad nam se učini ispravnim.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“I am an observer of myself, which is stupid, since I am my own observer anyway: I've actually been observing myself for years, if not for decades; my life now consists only of self-observation and self-contemplation, which naturally leads to self-condemnation, self-rejection and self-mockery. For years I have lived in this state of self-condemnation, self-abnegation and self-mockery, in which ultimately I always have to take refuge in order to save myself. But all the time I ask myself what I have to save myself from. Is what I constantly wish to save myself from really as bad as all that? No, it isn't, I told myself, and immediately resumed my self-observation, self-calumniation and self-mockery.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“Sometimes we need someone, sometimes no one, and sometimes we need someone and no one.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“When we have sentences in our heads we still can't be certain of being able to get them down on paper, I thought. The sentences frighten us; first the idea frightens us, then the sentence, then the thought that we may no longer have the idea in our heads when we want to write it down. Very often we write down a sentence too early, then another too late; what we have to do is to write it down at the proper time, otherwise it's lost.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“People are always talking about it being their duty to find their way to their fellow men — to their neighbour, as they are forever saying with all the baseness of false sentiment — when in fact it is purely and simply a question of finding their way to themselves. Let each first find his way to himself! And since hardly anyone has yet found his way to himself, it is inconceivable that any of these unfortunate millions has ever found his way to another human being — or to his neighbour, as they say, dripping with self-deception.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“Wenn wir einen geliebten Menschen verlieren, behalten wir doch immer ein Kleidungsstück von ihm wenigstens solange wir den Geruch des Verlorenen noch an ihm wahrnehmen können und tatsächlich bis in unserem Tod hinein, weil wir auch dann noch glauben, sein Geruch machte uns dieses Kleidungsstück gegenwärtig, wenn das auch längst nur mehr noch nichts ist als Einbildung.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“Family homes are fatal, she said, everything one inherits from one’s parents is fatal. Anyone who has the strength should get rid of these inherited family homes and inherited property as quickly as he can and free himself from them, because they only strangle him and invariably stand in the way of his development.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“Be happy, I said to myself. But unhappiness was not to be hoodwinked so crudely.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“Very often we write down a sentence too early, then another too late; what we have to do is to write it down at the proper time, otherwise it’s lost.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“For a year now you’ve been wittering on about Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Where’s your great work? You associate only with the dead. I associate with the living. That’s the difference between us. In the society I mix with there are living people, in yours there are only dead people. Because you’re afraid of the living, because you’re not willing to make the least commitment, the commitment that has to be made if one wants to associate with living people. You sit here in your house, which is nothing but a morgue, and cultivate the society of the dead.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“I'm not at all the kind of unfeeling person that some people take me to be because they want to see me like that and because that's how I very often make myself appear, not daring to show myself as I really am. But what am I really like? Once more I was caught up in speculations about myself.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“Husbands who have been deceived and lied to and made to look fools have for centuries fled to South America, never to return. It’s a tradition that goes back a long way.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“Die einzigen Freunde, die ich habe, sind die Toten, die mir ihre Literatur hinterlassen haben, ich habe keine anderen.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“For years it sufficed for me to go and see the woodcutters and talk to them about their work. Why didn’t it suffice for longer? Two hours’ walk straight there and back again in winter, every day — that was nothing. But all that is impossible today, I thought. The easy methods have all become ineffective — visiting people, reading the newspapers, etc. Even the reading of so-called serious literature no longer has the effect it once had. Suddenly we were afraid of gossip, particularly the gossip which is indulged in non-stop by the so-called celebrated journalists of the cultural papers, who are all the more repellent for being well-known. For years, for decades, we let ourselves be smothered by this repellent gossip. Admittedly I was never in the position of having to pawn my trousers in order to send a telegram, as Dostoyevsky was, and perhaps this was an advantage after all. I might call myself relatively independent. But shackled and imprisoned like everybody else. Impelled by disgust rather than possessed by curiosity. We always spoke of clarity of mind, but never had it.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“Por um lado, sobrestimamos o outro, por outro, menosprezamo-lo e estamos sempre a sobrestimarmo-nos e a menosprezarmo-nos, e quando nos deveríamos sobrestimar menosprezamo-nos, tal como nos deveríamos menosprezar quando nos sobrestimamos. E, de facto, sobrestimamos todo o tempo principalmente o que projectamos fazer porque, na verdade, cada trabalho do espírito é, como qualquer outro trabalho, sobrevalorizado em exagerno e não há no mundo nenhum trabalho do espírito a que este mundo sobrevalorizado não pudesse renunciar, tal como não há ninguém, nenhum espírito, a que não se devesse renunciar neste mundo; aliás, a tudo se deveria renunciar caso tivéssemos força e coragem para isso.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“Her zaman en tepedekini, en itinalıyı, en esaslıyı, en olağandışı olanı, hem de daima sadece en aşağılığın ve en yüzeyselin ve en bayağının fark edildiği yerde talep etmemiz gerçekten de hasta ediyor insanı. İnsanı ileriye götürmüyor, öldürüyor onu. Yükselişi beklediğimiz yerde çöküşü görüyoruz, umudumuz olduğu yerde umutsuzluğu görüyoruz, kendi hatamız bu, kendi şanssızlığımız.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete