Women as Lovers Quotes

“you have often seen in the cinema, erich, haven't you, that between extraordinary people extraordinary things like for example extraordinary love can arise. so we only have to be extraordinary and see what happens.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“perfectly happy momma goes out into the fields. she eavesdrops on herself, in case somewhere deep inside a melody rings out or a blackbird sings, but all that she hears, is only the cancer, which saws and eats away at her.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“men can be pigs, but also the opposite. what is the opposite of a pig?”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“and he said, i have to stay at home and help momma and attend to him, when he comes from work and fetch the beer from the innkeeper, that takes eight minutes there and back, and if it takes longer, then i'll break your back. and why should you, my daughter, be better off than me?”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“then stay at home, paula, and become a housewife and help me with the housework and with the animals and wait upon your dada as i wait upon him and also wait upon your brother, when he comes from the wood, why should you be better off than me, I was never better off than my mother, who was a housewife, because in those days there weren't any sales assistants here yet, and my dada would have beaten me to death if there had been any.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“باولا تحكم قبضتها على حقيبتها الجلدية الصغيرة التي هي أحسن من شنط نظيراتها المصنوعة من البلاستيك... النساء الأخريات يحكمن قبضتهن على معرفتهن بالرجال وهي معرفة لم تؤتها باولا بعد.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“كيف يُمكن أن يؤلم الحب عندما يأتي، وليس فقط عندما يذهب؟”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“paula's puny stomach, which will soon be fat and swollen, so that for the same money one could suddenly have many more pounds of paula, is up for auction. but nobody wants it. with a pig that would be an enormous gain in value. with paula it's a sign, mat she was easy to get, too easy, and now it's all the harder to dispose of her.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“when paula asks one of the women, what she would like, then she would like something for the whole family, for example, a car, in which then the whole family sits, and in which the mother is forever waiting to get a chance to smack the child's fingers, to be able to justify her own presence.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“it does not occur to brigitte to say leave me in peace. brigitte knows, there are so many woman who would like to turn a stranger's, her, brigitte's future into one of their own. so brigitte prefers to turn herself into an extension of heinz's limbs, into a part of heinz's body.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“it is not enough therefore, simply to surrender oneself brainlessly to love, when it knocks at the door, one must also calculate because of later life, which does sometimes follow.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“she must wait, till someone takes her, but afterwards, and then let herself be taken, but only afterwards. because if, like you, she lets herself be taken before, then she can count herself lucky afterwards, if anyone takes her at all.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“brigitte wants to have her future made. she cannot produce it herself.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“erich therefore thinks of two kinds of women, when he thinks about women at all, which he only does, when he feels a need, which one cannot satisfy by thinking anyway.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“terwijl de mannen mooi rijpen en ouder beginnen te worden en zich te goed doen aan de alcohol - die moet hen sterk en kankerloos houden -, duurt de doodstrijd van hun vrouwen vaak jaren en jaren, vaak ook nog zo lang dat ze de doodsstrijd van hun dochters kunnen meemaken. de vrouwen beginnen hun dochters te haten en willen hen zo gauw mogelijk ook laten sterven als zij zelf eens zijn gestorven, daarom: man gezocht.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes