Rosa > Rosa's Quotes

“He who stands aloof runs the risk of believing himself better than others and misusing his critique of society as an ideology for his private interest. While he gropingly forms his own life in the frail image of a true existence, he should never forget its frailty,
nor how little the image is a substitute for true life. Against such
awareness, however, pulls the momentum of the bourgeois within him.”
― Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life

“Alle Wege führen zur Erkenntnis der Nichtigkeit aller Dinge, aber keiner führt zurück.”
― Juli Zeh, Spieltrieb

“Das Spiel ist der Inbegriff demokratischer Lebensart. Es ist die letzt uns verbliebene Seinsform. Der Spieltrieb ersetzt die Religiosität, beherrscht die Börse, die Politik, die Gerichtssäle, die Pressewelt, und er ist es, der uns seit Gottes Tod mental am Leben hält.”
― Juli Zeh, Spieltrieb

“We are sun and moon, dear friend; we are sea and land. It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is: each the other's opposite and complement.”
― Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund

“We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will soon disappear. When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something last longer than we do.”
― Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund

“Wenn ich trotzdem weiß, was Liebe ist, so ist es deinetwegen. Dich habe ich lieben können, dich allein unter den Menschen. Du kannst nicht ermessen, was das bedeutet. Es bedeutet den Quell in einer Wüste, den blühenden Baum in einer Wildnis.”
― Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund

“for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“loves are like empires: when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they, too, fade away.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Perhaps all the questions we ask of love, to measure, test, probe, and save it, have the additional effect of cutting it short. Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“What we have not chosen we cannot consider either our merit or our failure... To rebel against being born a woman seemed as foolish to her as to take pride in it.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“What does it mean to live in truth? Putting it negatively is easy enough: it means not lying, not hiding, and not dissimulating.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Don't you think it's better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“I'm sorry. I didn't know you were coming or I'd have cleaned up a little more. My life, I mean, not just the apartment.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“I wish for a moment that time would lift me out of this day, and into some more benign one. But then I feel guilty for wanting to avoid the sadness; dead people need us to remember them, even if it eats us, even if all we can do is say "I'm sorry" until it is as meaningless air.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“Chaos is more freedom; in fact, total freedom. But no meaning. I want to be free to act, and I also want my actions to mean something.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“Do you ever miss him?
Every day. Every minute.
Every minute, she says.
Yes, it's that way, isn't it?”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“I love. I have loved. I will love.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“I love you, always. Time is nothing.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“The best love is the kind that weakens the soul, that makes us reach for more. That plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”
― H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature

“Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.”
― Hermann Hesse

“Just as with storytelling, so with life: it's important how well it is done, not how long.”
― Seneca, How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life

“To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Music soothes, the visual arts exhilarates, the performing arts (such as acting and dance) entertain. Literature, however, retreats from life by turning in into slumber. The other arts make no such retreat— some because they use visible and hence vital formulas, others because they live from human life itself.
This isn't the case with literature. Literature simulates life. A novel is a story of what never was, a play is a novel without narration. A poem is the expression of ideas or feelings a language no one uses, because no one talks in verse.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“what has happened to us has happened to everyone or only us; if to everyone, then it's no novelty, and if only to us, then it won't be understood.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“There’s something disturbing about recalling a warm memory and feeling utterly cold.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“There's a difference between really loving someone and loving the idea of her.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“It was the kind of kiss that made
me know that I was never so happy in my whole life.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower