Botho Strauß > Quotes

“Was wäre, wenn wir die Annahme explizit machten und konkretisieren müssten, dass alle ernst zu nehmende Kunst und Literatur, und nicht nur die Musik, auf die Nietzsche diesen Begriff anwendet, ein opus metaphysicum ist?”
― Botho Strauß

“Perhaps such a book introduces us to ourselves on a higher plateau of sensibility, a plateau on which we then wish to continue outside the book. Though we have rediscovered our forgotten passion by way of the (novel’s) imagination, what it releases inside us, the emotion, is by no means imaginary, it is quite real, as tears or trembling are real; a feeling that wants to be used, that requires personal experience. But in our daily lives there is nothing corresponding to it. Here everything is on a low-calorie emotional diet. Our real life offers us no opportunities to experience satiety. And so a passion ready to be expressed crouches in us after we’ve read the book, but nothing touches it off. After a while this crouching in a tense, contorted position begins to be painful. We contain more feeling than we may release. The surplus of reality which the book junkie has acquired, he must keep bottled up”
― Botho Strauss

“Nothing escapes, nothing final is accomplished, no one last step is taken. We live and we persist in the presence of parting and going away, nothing is worked out. Isn't love at all times the most virtual of all worlds? Overflowing with everything possible, but rather impoverished when it comes to actualities.”
― Botho Strauß, Living Glimmering Lying

“Die Künste, die den Müll der Welt zu spiegeln vorgeben, vermehren ihn nur.”
― Botho Strauß, Lichter des Toren: Der Idiot und seine Zeit

“Apart from exploration and fear, the only other forces that seem to play a role in regulating the affairs of human beings amongst each other are negligence and indifference. And if you take away this profound indifference people have for one another, all you really do is increase their aggression.”
― Botho Strauß, Couples, Passersby

“Por la vía imaginaria hemos encontrado la pasión olvidada, pero lo que ésta desencadena en nosotros, su emoción, no es en absoluto imaginario, sino real, como lo son las lágrimas y los temblores. Es un sentimiento que exige ser utilizado, que reclama la experiencia personal. Pero en nuestro presente cotidiano nada le corresponde. En él todo se rige por una dieta sentimental pobre. La verdadera vida no ofrece oportunidades para vivirla hasta la saciedad. Así, tras leer el libro, la pasión dispuesta a saltar acecha en nosotros pero nadie la invita a la acción”
― Botho Strauss, Die Widmung

“Perhaps such a book introduces us to ourselves on a higher plateau of sensibility, a plateau on which we then wish to continue outside the book. Though we have rediscovered our forgotten passion by way of the (novel’s) imagination, what it releases inside us, the emotion, is by no means imaginary, it is quite real, as tears or trembling are real; a feeling that wants to be used, that requires personal experience. But in our daily lives there is nothing corresponding to it. Here everything is on a low-calorie emotional diet. Our real life offers us no opportunities to experience satiety. And so a passion ready to be expressed crouches in us after we’ve read the book, but nothing touches it off. After a while this crouching in a tense, contorted position begins to be painful. We contain more feeling than we may release. The surplus of reality which the book junkie has acquired, he must keep bottled up.”
― Botho Strauß