Quotes of Elias Canetti - somelinesforyou

“ All things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ Death is a scandal. The machine is functioning, we are all hostages ”

- Elias Canetti

“ The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation, and it seems most true when it eschews artistic devices of any sort. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ There are books, that one has for twenty years without reading them, that one always keeps at hand, that one takes along from city to city, from country to country, carefully packed, even when there is very little room, and perhaps one leafs through them while removing them from a trunk; yet one carefully refrains from reading even a complete sentence. Then after twenty years, there comes a moment when suddenly, as though under a high compulsion, one cannot help taking in such a book from beginning to end, at one sitting: it is like a revelation. Now one knows why one made such a fuss about it. It had to be with one for a long time; it had to travel; it had to occupy space; it had to be a burden; and now it has reached the goal of its voyage, now it reveals itself, now it illuminates the twenty bygone years it mutely lived with one. It could not say so much if it had not been there mutely the whole time, and what idiot would dare to assert that the same things had always been in it. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ There are books, that one has for twenty years without reading them, that one always keeps at hand, that one takes along from city to city, from country to country, carefully packed, even when there is very little room, and perhaps one leafs through them while removing them from a trunk; yet one carefully refrains from reading even a complete sentence. Then after twenty years, there comes a moment when suddenly, as though under a high compulsion, one cannot help taking in such a book from beginning to end, at one sitting: it is like a revelation. Now one knows why one made such a fuss about it. It had to be with one for a long time; it had to travel; it had to occupy space; it had to be a burden; and now it has reached the goal of its voyage, now it reveals itself, now it illuminates the twenty bygone years it mutely lived with one. It could not say so much if it had not been there mutely the whole time, and what idiot would dare to assert that the same things had always been in it. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ There is no doubt: the study of man is just beginning, at the same time that his end is in sight. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching towards him, and to be able to recognize or at least classify it. Man always tends to avoid physical contact with anything strange. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ In five minutes the earth would be a desert, and you cling to books. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ Success is the space one occupies in the newspaper. Success is one day's insolence. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ The fear of burglars is not only the fear of being robbed, but also the fear of a sudden and unexpected clutch out of the darkness. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ Whenever you observe an animal closely, you feel as if a human being sitting inside were making fun of you. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ A 'modern' man has nothing to add to modernism, if only because he has nothing to oppose it with. The well-adapted drop off the dead limb of time like lice. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune? ”

- Elias Canetti

“ Whenever you observe an animal closely, you feel as if a human being sitting inside were making fun of you. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ Whenever you observe an animal closely, you feel as if a human being sitting inside were making fun of you. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching towards him, and to be able to recognize or at least classify it. Man always tends to avoid physical contact with anything strange. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ He who is obsessed by death is made guilty by it. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ The fear of burglars is not only the fear of being robbed, but also the fear of a sudden and unexpected clutch out of the darkness. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ Success listens only to applause. To all else it is deaf. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ The fear of burglars is not only the fear of being robbed, but also the fear of a sudden and unexpected clutch out of the darkness. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ His head is made of stars, but not yet arranged into constellations. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune? ”

- Elias Canetti

“ Adults find pleasure in deceiving a child. They consider it necessary, but they also enjoy it. The children very quickly figure it out and then practice deception themselves. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ One should not confuse the craving for life with endorsement of it. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else. He learns to see himself, but suddenly, provided he was honest, all the rest appears, and it is as rich as he was, and, as a final crowning, richer. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ Adults find pleasure in deceiving a child. They consider it necessary, but they also enjoy it. The children very quickly figure it out and then practice deception themselves. ”

- Elias Canetti

“ One should not confuse the craving for life with endorsement of it. ”

- Elias Canetti
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