Correction Quotes

“Instead of committing suicide, people go to work.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“Everything is what it is, that's all. If we keep attaching meanings and mysteries to everything we perceive, everything we see that is, and to everything that goes on inside us, we are bound to go crazy sooner or later, I thought.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“We always wonder, when we see two people together, particularly when they're actually married, how these two people could have arrived at such a decision, such an act, so we tell ourselves that it's a matter of human nature, that it's very often a case of two people going together, getting together, only in order to kill themselves in time, sooner or later to kill themselves, after mutually tormenting each other for years for for decades, only to end up killing themselves anyway, people who get together even though they probably clearly perceive their future of shared torment, who join together, get married, in the teeth of all reason, who against all reason commit the natural crime of bringing children into the world who then proceed to be the unhappiest imaginable people, we have evidence of this situation wherever we look... People who get together and marry even though they can foresee their future together only as a lifelong shared martyrdom, suddenly all these people qua human beings, human beings qua ordinary people... enter into a union, into a marriage, into their annihilation, step by step down they go into the most horrible situation imaginable, annihilation by marriage, meaning annihilation mental, emotional, and physical, as we can see all around us, the whole world is full of instances confirming this... why, I may well ask myself, this senseless sealing of the bargain, we wonder about it because we have an instance of it before us, how did this instance come to be?”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“We're constantly correcting, and correcting ourselves, most rigorously , because we recognize at every moment that we did it all wrong, how we acted all wrong, that everything to this point in time is a falsification, so we correct this falsification, and then we again correct the correction of this falsification and we correct the result of the correction of a correction and so forth, so Roithamer. But the ultimate correction is one we keep delaying, the kind others have made without ado from one minute to the next, I think, so Roithamer, the kind they could, by the time they no longer thought about it, because they were afraid even to think about it, but then they did correct themselves, like my cousin, like his father, my uncle, like all the others whom we knew, as we thought, whom we knew so thoroughly, yet we didn't really know all these peoples' characters, because their self-correction took us by surprise, otherwise we wouldn't have been surprised by their ultimate existential correction, their suicide.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“One is called upon to approach and realize and complete the monstrousness, and everyone has some such enormity in his life, or else to be destroyed by this monstrousness even before one has entered into it. In this way people always tend to waver at a certain point in their lives, and always at the particular crucial point in their lives when they must decide whether to tackle the monstrousness of their life or let themselves be destroyed by it before they have tackled it. Most people prefer to let themselves be destroyed by this monstrousness rather than to tackle it, because they aren't equipped by nature to tackle and realize and fulfil their monstrousness, they're rather inclined, by nature, to let themselves be destroyed by their monstrousness before they have tackled it. The matured idea is enough in itself to destroy most people, so Roithamer.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“In every area of life there's nothing but chaos. Wherever we turn there's chaos, in the sciences there's chaos, in politics, it's chaos, whatever we do, it's all chaotic, wherever we look, purely chaotic conditions, chaotic conditions are all we ever have to deal with. Because everything is being done precipitately, in a rush. In such a time of precipitateness and overhastiness and the consequent chaotic conditions a thinking man should never act precipitately or overhastily in anything that concerns him, but every single one of us constantly acts precipitately, overhastily, in every way.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“When a body is acted upon by external forces besides its weight it tips over on one side of the base if the (so-called) weight (vector) acts along a line through the so-called center-of-mass that intersects the supporting surface outside the base of the body; in the case of a stable equilibrium, the weight vector points inside the base, in the case of an unstable equilibrium it points exactly toward the tilting edge of the base, "tilting edge of the base" underlined. We always went to far, so Roithamer, so we were always pushing toward the extreme limit. But we never thrust ourselves beyond it. Once I have thrust myself beyond it, it's all over, so Roithamer, "all" underlined. We're always set toward the predetermined moment, "predetermined moment" underlined. When that moment has come, we don't know that it has come, but it is the right moment. We can exist at the heighest degree of intensity as long as we live, so Roithamer (June 7). The end is no process. Clearing.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“A body needs at least
three points of support,
not in a straight line,
to fix its position,
so Roithamer had written.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“Toda idea, al fin y al cabo, es una idea demencial.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“We can exist at the highest degree of intensity for as long as we live.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“In itself that music festival was nothing special, these music festivals in our country are all alike, performing a most useful function especially for all those people who are chained to their labors, year in and year out, so naturally everybody comes flocking to the two or three music festivals per year, with their actual and their so-called amusements and distractions, these affairs are called music festivals because unlike the usual so-called country fairs they feature a band, an enormous attraction to the populace, that's all it is, but the organizers know that they can draw a much larger crowd by calling it a music festival rather than a country fair, so it has become the custom to call these events music festivals even if they are nothing more than country fairs, everybody attends these music festivals which usually begin early on Saturday night and end late on Sunday morning.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“Thinking it over, one’s life is both the longest possible and the shortest possible, simultaneously, because it can be rethought and re-experienced in a moment, always in that moment in which such a (bold) thought occurs to one. Always wanting the impossible and left with the possible in his minimal existence, the individual always finds himself in the lowest depths of dissatisfaction. Nevertheless he always manages to create another life situation for himself, probably because he really loves life, just as it is. We always crave something other than we can have, than we have, other than what is suitable for us, and so we’re unhappy. When we’re happy we immediately analyze this happiness to death, if we’re like Roithamer and so forth, and are right back in misery.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“Correction of the correction of the correction of the correction.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“Nature, not yet polluted by human beings, hence his early rising.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“One has to be able to get up and walk away from every social gathering that's a waste of one's time, so Roithamer, to leave behind the nothing faces and the often boundlessly stupid heads, and to walk out and down and into the open air and leave everything connected with this worthless society behind, so Roithamer, one must have the strength and the courage and the relentlessness even toward oneself, to leave all these ridiculous, useless, dim-witted people and heads behind and breathe free, breathe out what's been left behind and breathe in something new, one must abandon at top speed these useless social agglomerations, banded together for their inevitable dim-witted purposes, so as not to become part of these dim-witted social groups, to get back to oneself from these social doings and find peace and light in oneself, so Roithamer. One must have the courage and the strength to break away from such company, such entertainment, such verbal violence and so forth, in which one has become involved against one's will, one must break away under any circumstances, so Roithamer, one must break off every one of these unspeakably stupid conversations, break away and walk away from all these senseless, useless and invariably dangerous subjects, to save oneself, rescue one's own head by escaping at any moment, at any time, from wherever it is, to escape into the open air, so Roithamer. To be honest, almost all the social gatherings we've ever been drawn into, without quite knowing how or why, strike us as useless, they serve no purpose at all, all they do is weaken us. At the right moment we must get up and leave such gatherings, circumstances, conditions, for what naturally becomes a lengthy, lasting, always unending solitude, so Roithamer. Such a rising up and going away is a daily occurrence, always we leave behind a society that repels us, so Roithamer. But as we keep leaving them, they more and more regard us as crazy and hate us, a situation that worsens from day to day, that militates against our head and against our character and against our whole being, so Roithamer.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“[S]uch a man is in constant danger of doing himself in by his continual thinking of the other man’s thoughts, in danger of deadening himself out of existence.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“Always wanting the impossible and left with the possible in his minimal existence, the individual always find himself in the lowest depths of dissatisfaction. Nevertheless he always manages to create another life situation for himself, probably because he really loves life, just as it is. We always crave something other than we can have, than we have, other than what is suitable for us, and so we're unhappy.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“Suddenly there's an idea and it demands realization, our entire life, our entire existence consists only of such ideas demanding realization, once this process breaks off, our life breaks off, we're dead. We consist of nothing but ideas that surface inside us and that we want to realize, that we must realize, or else we're dead, so Roithamer. Every idea and and every pursuit of an idea inside us is life, so Roithamer, the lack of ideas is death.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“Everything is what it is, that’s all. If we keep attaching meanings and mysteries to everything we perceive, everything we see that is, and to everything that goes on inside us, we are bound to go crazy sooner or later, I thought.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction: A Novel

“How we moved from our different points of departure, our positions, toward one single point, the single acceptable point, death.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction: A Novel

“Instead of committing suicide, people go to work. All their lives long, as long as their existence allows for this constantly recurring process, so Roithamer.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“We keep silent about what we know, and make good progress, so Roithamer.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“Even if the torment of absence and of pursuing, of advancing one's objective, one's intended continuous improvement of one's intellectual condition, is the greatest torment, and even if the hardship of taking root so far from home, in a so-called foreign country, is the greatest and most depressing of hardships, I shall not return to this state of imbecility and to the imbeciles of Altensam and Austria, he noted.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“When we think, we know nothing, everything is open, nothing, so Roithamer.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“Ve o inşaatçıların hepsini yeryüzünü kirleten ve mahveden kişiler olarak görüyordu. Mimar denilen kişiler (ki söylediğim gibi bu sözcükten nefret ediyordu!) ve tüm kalfalar ve inşaatçılar bugün yeryüzünü mahveden ve yok edenlermiş, yaptıkları her yeni inşaatla inşaat cinayeti işleyerek insanlığa karşı yeni bir suç işlemekteymişler, bir keresinde heyecanla: inşaatçılar tarafından inşa edilen her bina bir suçtur! diye bağırmıştı. Ve tüm bu suçlar dikkat çekmeden yapılır, evet bu inşaatçılar suçlu olarak neredeyse buna itilir ve davet edilir, özellikle de devlet ve onun kurumları tarafından, yeryüzünün üzerini sapık düşüncesizlikleriyle kaplamaya ve hem de öyle bir biçimde ve hızla kendi inşaat iğrençlikleriyle kaplamaya yönelirler, öyle ki kısa sürede yeryüzü bu inşaat cinayetleri altında boğulacak. Bütün dünya en korkunç ve en zevksiz biçimde ve canice bu binalarla tıka basa doldurulduğunda çok geç olacak, o zaman yeryüzü ölecek.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“One has to be able to get up and walk away from every social gathering that's a waste of one's time, so Roithamer, to leave behind the nothing faces and the often boundlessly stupid heads, and to walk out and down and into the open air and leave everything connected with this worthless society behind, so Roithamer, one must have the strength and the courage and the relentlessness even toward oneself, to leave all these ridiculous, useless, dim-witted people and heads behind and breathe free, breathe out what's been left behind and breathe in something new, one must abandon at top speed these useless social agglomerations, banded together for their inevitable dim-witted purposes, so as not to become part of these dim-witted social groups, to get back to oneself form these social doings and find peace and light in oneself, so Roithamer. One must have the courage and the strength to break away from such company, such entertainment, such verbal violence and so forth, in which one has become involved against one's will, one must break away under any circumstances, so Roithamer, one must break off every one of these unspeakably stupid conversations, break away and walk away from all these senseless, useless and invariably dangerous subjects, to save oneself, rescue one's own head by escaping at any moment, at any time, from wherever it is, to escape into the open air, so Roithamer. To be honest, almost all the social gatherings we've ever been drawn into, without quite knowing how or why, strike us as useless, they serve no purpose at all, all they do is weaken us. At the right moment we must get up and leave such gatherings, circumstances, conditions, for what naturally becomes a lengthy, lasting, always unending solitude, so Roithamer. Such a rising up and going away is a daily occurrence, always we leave behind a society that repels us, so Roithamer. But as we keep leaving them, they more and more regard us as crazy and hate us, a situation that worsens from day to day, that militates against our head and against our character and against our whole being, so Roithamer.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“We weren't alike, never, so Roithamer, but neither was I, ever, eccentric, it's not true that I was eccentric, though they never tired of calling me an eccentric, it was their way of slandering me, because I acted in accordance with my nature without concerning myself with the others and their opinions, I was denounced as an eccentric, I, who simply tried to live always in accordance with my own, absolutely not eccentric nature, all I did was simply to be true to my own nature, day after day, but that's how I was turned into an eccentric from earliest childhood on.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“If I don’t work hard enough, I’m destructive, if I work too hard, I’m destructive, so Roithamer.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“A man’s lack of ideas is his death, so Roithamer, just think how many there are quite without ideas, entirely lacking any idea, they don’t exist.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“When we’re happy we immediately analyze this happiness to death, if we’re like Roithamer andsoforth, and are right back in misery.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction