Thomas Bernhard Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• The thinking man always finds himself in a gigantic orphanage in which people are continually proving to him that he has no parents.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Men, Thinking, People

  Thomas Bernhard (2010). “Gargoyles: A Novel”, p.173, Vintage

  10 Copy quote

• perfidious society masturbators

  Thomas Bernhard

  Thomas Bernhard (2013). “Woodcutters”, p.85, Vintage

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• ...He was just scraps of words and dislocated phrases.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Phrases, Scrap

  8 Copy quote

• Toda idea, al fin y al cabo, es una idea demencial.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Ideas, Cabo, Als

  9 Copy quote

• Everyone, he went on, speaks a language he does not understand, but which now and then is understood by others. That is enough to permit one to exist and at least to be misunderstood.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Misunderstood, Doe, Language

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• Everyone is a virtuoso on his own instrument, but together they add up to an intolerable cacophony.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Together, Add, Cacophony

  Thomas Bernhard (2013). “Concrete”, p.61, Faber & Faber

  13 Copy quote

• I really only write about inner landscapes and most people don't see them, because they see practically nothing within, because they think that because it's inside, it's dark, and so they don't see anything. I don't think I've ever yet, in any of my books, described a landscape. There's really nothing of the kind in any of them. I only ever write concepts. And so I'm always referring to "mountains" or "a city" or "streets." But as to how they look: I've never produced a description of a landscape. That's never even interested me.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Book, Writing, Dark

  8 Copy quote

• Lawyers make nothing but confusion...A lawyer is an instrument of the devil. In general, he's a fiendish idiot, banking on the stupidity of people much more stupid than himself, and by God he's always right.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Stupid, People, Confusion

  12 Copy quote

• Only when I am by seawater can I truly breathe, to say nothing of my ability to think.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Thinking, Breathe, Ability

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• The study of sickness is the most poetic of the sciences.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Study, Poetic, Sickness

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• Those are terrible people who don't like Glenn Gould... I will have nothing to do with such people, they are dangerous people.

  Thomas Bernhard

  People, Dangerous, Terrible

  Thomas Bernhard (2010). “The Loser: A Novel”, p.189, Vintage

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• Those who live in the country get idiotic in time, without noticing it, for a while they think it's original and good for their health, but life in the country is not original at all, for anyone who wasn't born in and for the country it shows a lack of taste and is only harmful to their health. The people who go walking in the country walk right into their own funeral in the country and at the very least they lead a grotesque existence which leads them first into idiocy, then into an absurd death.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Country, Thinking, People

  Thomas Bernhard (2010). “The Loser: A Novel”, p.28, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• A criminal is undoubtedly a poor soul, who is punished for his poverty.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Soul, Criminals, Poverty

  4 Copy quote

• One day you're cut off, at the very start you're cut off and can't go back, the language you learn and the whole business of walking and all the rest is for the sake of the single thought, how to get back again.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Cutting, One Day, Sake

  Thomas Bernhard (1991). “On the mountain: rescue attempt, nonsense”

  8 Copy quote

• ...we ask: Why suicide? We search for reasons, causes, and so on.... We follow the course of the life he has now so suddenly terminated as far back as we can. For days we are preoccupied with the question: Why suicide? We recollect details. And yet we must say that everything in the suicide's life- for now we know that all his life he was a suicide, led a suicide's existence- is part of the cause, the reason, for his suicide.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Suicide, Details, Causes

  8 Copy quote

• I had to spend my entire childhood in the Altensam dungeon like an inmate doing time for no comprehensible reason, for a crime he can't remember committing, a judicial error probably.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Errors, Childhood, Dungeons

  Thomas Bernhard (2013). “Correction: A Novel”, p.172, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• We publish only to satisfy out craving for fame; there's no other motive except the even baser one of making money.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Making Money, Fame, Motive

  Thomas Bernhard (2013). “Concrete”, p.20, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

• I avoid literature whenever possible, because whenever possible I avoid myself.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Literature

  Thomas Bernhard (1989). “Wittgenstein's nephew: a friendship”, Alfred a Knopf Inc

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• The anger and the brutality against everything can readily from one hour to the next be transformed into its opposite.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Opposites, Brutality, Next

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• What is ridiculous about human beings, Doctor,' the prince said, 'is actually their total incapacity to be ridiculous

  Thomas Bernhard

  Doctors, Ridiculous, Said

  Thomas Bernhard (2010). “Gargoyles: A Novel”, p.180, Vintage

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• I would be the unhappiest person imaginable, confronted daily with disastrous works crying out with errors, imprecision, carelessness, amateurishness. I avoided this punishment by destroying them, I thought, and suddenly I took great pleasure in the word destroying.

  Thomas Bernhard

  Punishment, Errors, Would Be

  Thomas Bernhard (2010). “The Loser: A Novel”, p.75, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

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