Wonderful, Wonderful Times Quotes

“He lies like a book. And he reads a lot of books.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Wonderful, Wonderful Times

“Anna despises two classes of people: first, those who own their own homes and have cars and families, and second, everybody else. Constantly she is on the verge of exploding. With rage. A pool of pure red. The pool is filled with speechlessness that talks away at her nonstop.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Wonderful, Wonderful Times

“After all, when you take a walk you're after solitude, and if the solitude won't come to you, you must go to it.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Wonderful, Wonderful Times

“De Sade says you must commit crimes. In using the word crime we're adopting the consensus term, though among ourselves we would not describe any of our actions as such. We need the universally valid norm to get a kick out of our own extremeness. We are monsters, even if we disguise ourselves as ordinary people. We are the children of ordinary people, but we are not content with that. Inwardly we are consumed with wickedness, outwardly we are grammar school pupils.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Wonderful, Wonderful Times

“If you are sitting on a felled tree in a pine forest enjoying the sunshine you can easily forget what time it is. Not that you could forget your gold watch, just the time of day.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Wonderful, Wonderful Times

“Madness? Categories such as that do not exist – as far as I'm concerned, everything is healthy, except for fruit and vegetables. In art, too, madness comes in handy, in the art of the insane, and soon there will no doubt be artists who inflict wounds upon themselves, they will be the most modern of all modern artists. For example, you’re injured and you go for a walk along the street and display your injury to a police inspector, calling it a work of art, he does not understand this, and the gulf between him and the artist (who is at one and the same time his own work of art) becomes immeasurable, never to be crossed. Submission to something you didn't preach yourself is no good, I quote. Because Man must burst his ridiculous bonds, which consist of what is supposedly current reality with a prospect of a future reality of scarcely any greater value. Quote: Each and every full minute bears within it the negation of centuries of lame, broken history. End of quote.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Wonderful, Wonderful Times

“Va a costar mucho trabajo motivar a Sophie para cometer uno o varios crímenes, ya que su naturaleza la inclina a no esforzarse demasiado.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Wonderful, Wonderful Times

“The moment workers can afford too little they rebel. The last time this was a real danger was 1950. Communists took advantage of supply problems and stirred up gullible people against their very own country.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Wonderful, Wonderful Times