Elfriede Jelinek > Quotes

“Every day, a piece of music, a short story, or a poem dies because its existence is no longer justified in our time. And things that were once considered immortal have become mortal again, no one knows them anymore. Even though they deserve to survive.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

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

“Vice is basically the love of failure.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Pianolærerinnen

“The first thing a proprietor learns, and painfully at that, is: Trust is fine, but control is better.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“Art and order, the relatives that refuse to relate.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“No art can possibly comfort HER then, even though art is credited with so many things, especially an ability to offer solace. Sometimes, of course, art creates the suffering in the first place.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“Sunday, the day for the language of leisure.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“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

“Strictly speaking, there are no holidays for art; art pursues you everywhere, and that's just fine with the artist.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“you have often seen in the cinema, erich, haven't you, that between extraordinary people extraordinary things like for example extraordinary love can arise. so we only have to be extraordinary and see what happens.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“most expensive originals have cheap imitations.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“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.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“simple people. . . . listen to music with their hearts and enjoy it more than those who are spoiled, jaded, blase.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“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

“Her body is one big refrigerator, where Art is well stored.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“Sicherheit erzeugt Angst vor dem Unsicheren.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“the ignorant majority, which does however possess one thing in abundance: It is raring for a fight.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“Everyone wants to look for something of their own, a house of their own, a child of their own, a partner of their own, entirely for themselves alone. No one is satisfied with a room of their own any more.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Greed

“Manchmal scheitern wir in der Tat, und ich glaube fast, dieses prinzipielle Scheitern ist unser letztes Ziel.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“Das Schreiben ist kein Genuss. Es ist das Quälende. Etwas, was man tut, wie Kotzen. Man muss es tun, obwohl man es eigentlich nicht will.”
― Elfriede Jelinek

“Seek and you shall find the repulsive things you secretly hope to find.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“Only the TV sounds are real, they are the actual events. All the people around here experience the same things at the same time, except for some loner, who switches to the educational channel.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“Wer suchet, der findet Anstößiges, auf das er insgeheim hofft.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“Der Herdeninstinkt schätzt ja überhaupt das Mittlere hoch ein. Er preist es als wertvoll. Sie glauben, sie seien stark, weil sie die Mehrheit bilden. In der mittleren Schicht gibt es keinen Schrecken, keine Furcht. Aneinanderdrängen sie sich um der Illusion von Wärme willen. Mit nichts ist man im Mittleren allein, mit sich selbst schon gar nicht.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“The Ph.D is one of the chosen who know that some things can never be fathomed, no matter how hard you try. What good are explanations? There is no possibility of explaining how such a work [Mozart's Requiem, in the instance] could ever have come into being. (The same holds true for certain poems, which should not be analyzed either.)”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“Is writing the gift of curling up, of curling up with reality? One would so love to curl up, of course, but what happens to me then? What happens to those, who don’t really know reality at all? It’s so very dishevelled. No comb, that could smooth it down. The writers run through it and despairingly gather together their hair into a style, which promptly haunts them at night. Something’s wrong with the way one looks. The beautifully piled up hair can be chased out of its home of dreams again, but can anyway no longer be tamed. Or hangs limp once more, a veil before a face, no sooner than it could finally be subdued. Or stands involuntarily on end in horror at what is constantly happening. It simply won’t be tidied up. It doesn’t want to.”
― Elfriede Jelinek

“perfectly happy momma goes out into the fields. she eavesdrops on herself, in case somewhere deep inside a melody rings out or a blackbird sings, but all that she hears, is only the cancer, which saws and eats away at her.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Les amantes

“Gleich wird sie dieses Stück ihres Lebens bei einer Freundin und bei Rindfleisch mit Fisolen repetieren, das Leben gleichsam um diese kleine Spanne des darüber Berichtens verlängern, wäre nicht die Zeit während ihrer Erzählung, die ja ihrerseits unaufhaltsam verstreicht. Und der Dame damit Raum für neues Erleben nimmt.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“Money never goes out of fashion.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“I only enjoy what I can see, because I don't feel anything. For example, your new wallpaper. I like it and it can stay, it's quiet and it keeps quiet at least. Luckily I don't have to feel it, just see it.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, Greed