Peter Handke > Quotes

“If a nation loses its storytellers, it loses its childhood.”
― Peter Handke

“When the child was a child, it didn’t know that it was a child, everything was soulful, and all souls were one.”
― Peter Handke, Song of Childhood

“حاجة ماسة للبوح تصادفها أقصى درجات الصمت”
― Peter Handke, الشقاء العادي

“Loneliness is a source of loathsome ice-cold suffering, the suffering of unreality. At such times we need people to teach us that we're not really so far gone.”
― Peter Handke, The Left-Handed Woman

“No one can be trusted who isn't thrilled with himself at least now and then.”
― Peter Handke

“Though nothing much had happened, he felt that he had seen and experienced enough that day - thus securing his tomorrow. For today he required no more, no sight or conversation, and above all nothing new. Just to rest, to close his eyes and ears; just to inhale and exhale would be effort enough. He wished it was bedtime. Enough of being in the light and out of doors; he wanted to be in the dark, in the house, in his room. But he had also had enough of being alone; he felt, as time passed, that he was experiencing every variety of madness and that his head was bursting. He recalled how, years ago, when it had been his habit to taken afternoon walks on lonely bypaths, a strange uneasiness had taken possession of him, leading him to believe that he had dissolved in the air and ceased to exist.”
― Peter Handke, The Afternoon of a Writer

“لا أقوى على البقاء في البيت، لذلك أتسكع في الجوار على غير هدى أو قصد. ففي هذه الآونة بتُّ أستيقظ في ساعة مُبكرة قليلا، و ساعة نهوضي من الفراش هي أصعب ما أعانيه، إذ أجدني مرغمة على الإتيان بأي شيء لكي لا أعود إلى الفراش مجددا، أصبحت لا أعرف كيف أُشغِل نفسي ولا كيف أستغل الوقت. ثمة عزلة هائلة في داخلي، ولا رغبة لي أن أخاطب أحدا من الناس. و في معظم الأحيان أشعر برغبة في تناول كأس عند المساء و لكن يتوجب عليّ أن لا أفعل لأن الشراب يبطل مفعول الدواء”
― Peter Handke, الشقاء العادي

“Horror is something perfectly natural: the mind’s emptiness. A thought is taking shape, then suddenly it notices that there is nothing more to think. Whereupon it crashes to the ground like a figure in a comic strip who suddenly realises that he has been walking on air.”
― Peter Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams

“كنت مرغمة دوما على أن أكون قوية، أنا التي كم وددت أن أكون ضعيفة”
― Peter Handke, الشقاء العادي

“It was nearly winter. I had just seen a friend die, and was again beginning to take pleasure in my own existence. This friend, who thought of himself as the "first man to experience pain", had nevertheless tried up to the last moment to wish death away. I was thankful for all things and decreed: Enjoy yourself, take advantage of your days of good health.”
― Peter Handke, Slow Homecoming

“She read newspapers, but preferred books with stories that she could compare with her own life. She read the books I was reading, first Fallada, Knut Hamsun, Dostoevsky, Maxim Gorky, then Thomas Wolfe and William Faulkner. What she said about books could not have been put into print; she merely told me what had particularly caught her attention. “I’m not like that”, she sometimes said, as though the author had written about her. To her, every book was an account of her own life, and in reading she came to life; for the first time, she came out of her shell; she learned to talk about herself; and with each book she had more ideas on the subject. Little by little, I learned something about her.”
― Peter Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams

“Sorrow beyond dreams.”
― Peter Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams

“In a sense, the mentally deranged and feebleminded were my guardian angels, and when I hadn’t seen any of them in a long time, the sight of an idiot gave me a sudden burst of health and strength.”
― Peter Handke

“أحبّ الحيوانات مُذ عرفتُ البشر”
― Peter Handke

“Die Müdigkeit als das Mehr des weniger Ich.”
― Peter Handke, Versuch über die Müdigkeit

“It’s intolerable that when someone is born into the world, he can’t automatically come to consciousness.”
― Peter Handke, Short Letter, Long Farewell

“No possibilities, it was all settled in advance: a bit of flirtation, a few giggles, brief bewilderment, then the alien, resigned look of a woman starting to keep house again, the first children, a bit of togetherness after the kitchen work, from the start not listened to, and in turn listening less and less, inner monologues, trouble with her legs, varicose veins, mute except for mumbling in her sleep, cancer of the womb, and finally, with death, destiny fulfilled. The girls in our town used to play a game based on the stations in a woman’s life: Tired/ Exhausted/Sick/Dying/Dead.”
― Peter Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams

“These "so thats," "becauses," and "whens" were like regulations; in decided to avoid them in order not to--”
― Peter Handke, The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick

“The worst thing right now would be sympathy, expressed in a word or even a glance. I would turn away or cut the sympathiser short, because I need the feeling that what I am going through is incomprehensible and incommunicable; only then does the horror seem meaningful and real. If anyone talks to me about it, the boredom comes back, and everything is unreal again. Nevertheless, for no reason at all, I sometimes tell people about my mother’s suicide, but if they dare to mention it I am furious. What I really want them to do is change the subject and tease me about something.”
― Peter Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams

“قوّة الوقائع من الطغيان بحيث أنّ المُخيلة أصبحت عزلاء”
― Peter Handke, الشقاء العادي

“Once, when I was slicing bread, my knife slipped; instantly, I remembered how in the morning she used to cut thin slices of bread and pour warm milk on them for the children.”
― Peter Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams

“الأدب أعمق ما يمكن أن نعيشه ، هو لا يغيّر الحياة ، بل يوقظها ، وبذلك يغيّير حياتنا ، يغيّرنا نحن .”
― Peter Handke

“أنحني لألتقط أقلّ نديفة صوف وأدقّ فتة خبز, ويدهشني أحياناً أنّ ما أمسكه بيدي لم يقع مني منذ وقتٍ طويل”
― Peter Handke, الشقاء العادي

“Meine Wissenschaft gibt mir Wachträume, die andere nicht einmal im Schlafen haben."

Peter Handke: Langsame Heimkehr. Erzählung. Frankfurt am Main 1994, S. 63.”
― Peter Handke

“نساءٌ متورّدات الوجنات, حتّى في الغبطة لأن العُرف يفرض أنّ يخجلن من هذه الغبطة”
― Peter Handke

“I can only move myself into the distance; my mother can never become for me, as I can for myself, a winged art object flying serenely through the air. She refuses to be isolated and remains unfathomable; my sentences crash in the darkness and lie scattered on the paper.”
― Peter Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams

“‎Gelähmt schon vom Morgengrauen, treibt ein Bündel Elend, im Augenblick des Auslaufs gekentert sein Schiff mit dem Namen 'Abenteuer des Tages', in den Wassern des Vormittags, kommt zum Bewußtsein nicht einmal der Stille des Mittags und liegt, von der Zwischenzeit zu schweigen, am Ende, an eben der Stelle, von welcher unser Held 'in aller Herrgottsfrühe' eigentlich hätte aufbrechen sollen, fest in der Nacht - und auch die Wörter und Bilder, sein Scheitern am Tag weiterzugeben, gibt es nicht, es sei denn die schalgewordenen und ausgeschöpften Allegorien wie gerade eben."

Peter Handke: Versuch über den geglückten Tag. Ein Wintertagtraum. Frankfurt am Main 1991, S. 32.”
― Peter Handke, Versuch über den geglückten Tag. Ein Wintertagtraum.

“كنا نخوض لأول مرة تجربة العيش كجماعة , وحتى ضجر أيام الاسبوع العادية كان يكتسب جو الاحتفال وكأن كل ما كان حتى ذلك الحين مبهما وغريبا بات يطمئن إلى تناسق وانسجام ,كان كل شيء ينتظم بصلة ما حتى العمل الآلي الرتيب يصبح له معنى , معني الاحتفال , حتى الحركات التي نؤديها تتناغم مع إيقاع رياضي لأننا كنا نتخيل أن آخرين , لا يحصى عددهم , يؤدون الحركة نفسها في الوقت ذاته , وكان هذا يضفي على العيش شكلا من المتانة يشعر المرء معه بأنه يستند إلى ذراع قوية ولكنها طليقة في آن”
― Peter Handke

“Don't wish me luck; wish me goodness: that I may always be good.”
― Peter Handke, Quiet Places: Collected Essays

“منسية كحصاة على الطرقات، كم أنا منسية، كم أنا منسية !”
― Peter Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams