Existential Literature Quotes

“To be utterly innocent would be to be utterly unknown, particularly to oneself.”
― Djuna Barnes, Nightwood

“In a dream there is always an element of absurdity and confusion--one is never altogether free of the vague feeling that everything is false, that sooner or later one is going to wake up. In a dream things are never crystal clear and real.”
― Dino Buzzati, The Tartar Steppe

“Sometimes I think, we want a war, we keep waiting for some great chance, we curse our luck because nothing ever happens.”
― Dino Buzzati, The Tartar Steppe

“He was worse off than any of us, really. Like us he did not come face to face with the enemy, he didn't have a war either. Yet he died as if it were in battle.”
― Dino Buzzati, The Tartar Steppe

“After all we always get our deserts. Angustina, for instance, was ready to pay a high price-we weren't. Perhaps that is the whole point. Perhaps we expect too much. After all we get our deserts.”
― Dino Buzzati, The Tartar Steppe

“I've seen others before you. Little by little they got accustomed to the Fort, remained imprisoned in here and could no longer make a move. Old at thirty, that was what they were.”
― Dino Buzzati, The Tartar Steppe

“This is the time when an obstinate lament from life re-awakens in the old beams. Many, many years ago in happier times there had been a surge of heat and youthful strength and clusters of buds sprang from the boughs. Then the tree had been cut down. And now it is spring and in each of its dismembered parts there still awakens a pulse of life, an infinitely weaker pulse. Once there were leaves and flowers; now only a dim memory, enough to make a cracking noise and then it is over until the next year.”
― Dino Buzzati, The Tartar Steppe