Elfriede Jelinek quotes - page 2

In this new era, what sets you free is knowledge, not work. (Elfriede Jelinek)
In the case of a writer like Musil writing is often a graceful act, like a silvery fish leaping. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
Beethoven's sonatas, whether show so much variety that one has to ask oneself the fundamental question of what the much vilified word ‘sonata means. Perhaps Beethoven applied the word to entities that are not even sonatas in the strict sense of the term. One has to perceive new law in the highly dramatic musical form. Often in the sonata, feeling eludes form. In Beethoven, that is not the case, for here the two go hand in hand; feeling makes form aware of a hole in the ground and vice versa. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
After all, people with a herd instinct hold mediocrity in high esteem. They praise it as having great value. They believe they are strong because they are the majority. The middling level has no terrors, no anxieties. They huddle together, indulging in the illusion of warmth. If you're alone with nothing, and certainly not yourself. And how content they are with that state of affairs! View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
When discussing Bach's six Brandenburg concertos, the artistically aware person usually states, among other things, that when these masterpieces were composed, the stars were dancing in heavens. God and his dwelling place are always involved whenever these people talk about Bach. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
Pain itself is merely a consequence of the desire for pleasure, the desire t destroy, to annihilate; in its supreme form, pain is a variety of pleasure. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
Money is unimportant, but it is reassuring to have it. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
Don't start anything you can't finish. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
There is no such thing as the universal ‘Man' never has been, never will be, there is the worker and there is the one who exploits the worker and those who abet him. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
Happiness happens by chance, and is not a law or the logical consequences of actions. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
There are photographs under the pistol, showing his mother genitals. These genitals make no perceptible impression on him, though it was through them that he first entered the world. (Elfriede Jelinek)
Intellectuals will still go on emphasizing free will even when they've got nothing left to eat. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
The rules of art do not exist, because what makes art art is the fact that it obeys no rules at all. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
Sometimes, of course, art creates the suffering in the first place. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
I have a feeling that you despise your body and that you only value art, you only value your argent needs, but eating and sleeping aren't enough. You believe that your appearance is your enemy, and the only friend you have is music. Why look just in the mirror, look at your reflection, you'll never find a better friend that yourself. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
Nothing is natural, yet everything is as it is by nature. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
I don't know if it's enough for a whole life, a man wants to enjoy many women, a man is different. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
The criteria of art are the imponderable, the immeasurable. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
Of course, art turns many people away for there has to be a limit. The limits between the gifted and the ungifted. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
In the old days people had no time to harm the environment because they were busy doing harm to themselves, in the War, for instance. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
The most powerful urge known to Man is the urge to be free of manual labour. Any means that accomplishes that end is fine. Some people erroneously imagine that they have a birthright to non-manual work. (Elfriede Jelinek)
weak are defeated by the strong in the world of Nature. A reed by the north wind, for instance. And silence by the forest. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
Death the Laveller annihilates all distinctions. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
often these women marry or they are ruined some other way. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek
A sensitive person gets burned, like a delicate moth. View quote
Elfriede Jelinek