You Should Have Left Quotes

“You have to be completely unimaginative to sit down without fear in a fuel-filled capsule. One second you’re firmly ensconced in everyday life and thinking about dinner and your tax return, the next you’re wedged in deformed metal while the flames devour you, and all that lies between the one state and the other is a clumsy turn of the steering wheel, half a second of inattention. But I didn’t want to be someone who can’t cope with everyday life. People have simply agreed that driving a car is something harmless.”
― Daniel Kehlmann, You Should Have Left

“But why people? I asked. What does he care about people? He’s a bear.”
― Daniel Kehlmann, You Should Have Left

“Write it down so that you remember, so that you can never claim it was only your imagination.”
― Daniel Kehlmann, You Should Have Left

“Por primera vez en la vida, mientras saltaba y cantaba y daba palmas, me pregunté seriamente si me habría vuelto loco. Pero, ¿cómo se podía saber eso, cómo lo descubría uno? ¿Acaso el hecho de estar haciéndome la pregunta no era ya la prueba de que no lo estaba?”
― Daniel Kehlmann, You Should Have Left

“Solo un momento antes estaba inmerso en lo cotidiano, pensando en la cena y en la declaración de la renta, y de pronto estás atrapado en un amasijo de metal deformado mientras te devoran las llamas, y entre una situación y la otra solo hay un giro torpe de volante, medio segundo de descuido. Pero no quería quedar como alguien incapaz de lidiar con el día a día. La gente simplemente ha acordado que conducir es algo inocuo.”
― Daniel Kehlmann, You Should Have Left

“Get away quickly, she said. What? Quickly, she said. Quickly get away.”
― Daniel Kehlmann, You Should Have Left

“Matrimonio. El secreto está en que, a pesar de todo, nos queremos. Yo no querría vivir sin ella: echaría de menos hasta su risa de actriz. Ni ella sin mí. Si no nos crispáramos tanto los nervios el uno al otro…
Vete mientras”
― Daniel Kehlmann, You Should Have Left

“Ehe. Das Geheimnis ist, dass man sich ja doch liebt. Ich würde nicht ohne sie sein wollen - selbst ihr Schauspielerlachen würde mir fehlen. Und sie nicht ohne mich. Wenn man einander nur nicht unterdessen so auf die Nerven fiele.”
― Daniel Kehlmann, Du hättest gehen sollen

“Sweat was running down my face. The next turn wasn’t too bad, and I noticed an old barn on the roadside, the roof caved-in, the windows empty holes, but I had already been distracted for too long, and the abyss came so close that I cried out. I”
― Daniel Kehlmann, You Should Have Left

“He looks around, he suddenly recognizes in his colleagues what others see in him: tax officials. And he is one of them. How could it have happened that he became a tax official? On the computer he looks at pictures from his school days. Back then he wasn’t a tax official yet.”
― Daniel Kehlmann, You Should Have Left