Paul Celan Quotes

“I write to you to tell you that you don’t stop being present, close by, that you accompany me everywhere I go, that this world is you, you alone, and that because of that it is larger, that it has found, thanks to you, a new dimension, a new coordinate, the one I could no longer bring myself to grant it, that it is no longer that implacable solitude that forced me at each moment to sack what rose in front of me, to hound myself — that everything changes, changes, changes under your gaze —

from a letter to Gisele Celan-Lestrange”
― Paul Celan, Paul Celan: Selections

“Unreadability of this
world. All doubles.

The strong clocks
back the fissure-hour,
hoarsely.

You, wedged into your deepest,
climb out of yourself
for ever.

— Paul Celan, “Unreadability,” Paul Celan: Selections. (University of California Press, March 14th 2005)”
― Paul Celan, Paul Celan: Selections

“he calls out play death more sweetly
Death is a master from Deutschland
he calls scrape those fiddles more darkly
then as smoke you’ll rise in the air
then you’ll have a grave in the clouds
there you’ll lie at ease”
― Paul Celan, Paul Celan: Selections