Robert Walser Quotes

• Every sensitive person carries in himself old cities enclosed by ancient walls

  Robert Walser

  Wall, Cities, Sensitive Person

  Robert Walser (2013). “The Walk”, p.43, Profile Books

  55 Copy quote

• I don't want a future, I want a present. To me this appears of greater value. You have a future only when you have no present, and when you have a present, you forget to even think about the future.

  Robert Walser

  Thinking, Want, Forget

  Robert Walser, Susan Bernofsky (2009). “The Tanners”, p.72, New Directions Publishing

  33 Copy quote

• When we realize that words can destroy something good, wonderful, and dear, and that by keeping silent we can avoid causing the least damage or harm, it’s easy to stay silent.

  Robert Walser

  Damage, Realizing, Wonderful

  Robert Walser (1990). “Masquerade and other stories”, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

  26 Copy quote

• That lovely things exist is a lovely thought.

  Robert Walser

  Lovely, Lovely Things

  Robert Walser (1990). “Masquerade and other stories”, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

  13 Copy quote

• How uninteresting interesting things can become.

  Robert Walser

  Interesting, Interesting Things

  Robert Walser (1990). “Masquerade and other stories”, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

  12 Copy quote

• At least we should learn to understand our fellow beings, for we are powerless to stop their misery, their ignominy, their suffering, their weakness, and their death.

  Robert Walser

  Suffering, Weakness, Misery

  Robert Walser (2012). “Berlin Stories”, p.119, New York Review of Books

  17 Copy quote

• I am not here [in the sanitarium] to write, but to be mad.

  Robert Walser

  Writing, Mad

  13 Copy quote

• Today I told myself that in actual fact anyone who takes an innocuous and random delight in his life is an absolute lummox.

  Robert Walser

  Delight, Today, Facts

  Robert Walser (2013). “The Walk”, p.135, Profile Books

  15 Copy quote

• Your very eyes. How they have always been for me the command to obey, the inviolable and beautiful commandment. No, no, I'm not telling lies. Your appearance in the doorway! ... You have been my body's health. Whenever I have read a book, it was you I was reading, not the book, you were the book. You were, you were.

  Robert Walser

  Beautiful, Lying, Book

  18 Copy quote

• Listening to music, I always have exactly the same feeling: something’s missing. Never will I learn the cause of this gentle sadness, never will I wish to investigate it.

  Robert Walser

  Sadness, Missing, Feelings

  Robert Walser (1990). “Masquerade and other stories”, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

  12 Copy quote

• How small life is here and how big nothingness. The sky, tired of light, has given everything to the snow. The two trees bow their heads to each other. Clouds cross the world’s silence in a circle dance

  Robert Walser

  Tired, Clouds, Light

  12 Copy quote

• That is all very senseless, but this senselessness has a pretty mouth, and it smiles.

  Robert Walser

  Mouths, Senselessness

  Robert Walser (2014). “Jakob von Gunten”, p.12, New York Review of Books

  9 Copy quote

• With all my ideas and follies I could one day found a corporate company for the propagation of beautiful but unreliable imaginings.

  Robert Walser

  Beautiful, Ideas, One Day

  Robert Walser (2014). “Jakob von Gunten”, p.140, New York Review of Books

  11 Copy quote

• Questions are usually more beautiful, more significant than their resolutions, which in fact never resolve them, are never sufficient to satisfy us, whereas from a question streams a wonderful fragrance.

  Robert Walser

  Beautiful, Facts, Wonderful

  Robert Walser (1990). “Masquerade and other stories”, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

  9 Copy quote

• One is always half mad when one is shy of people.

  Robert Walser

  People, Mad, Shy

  Robert Walser (2014). “Jakob von Gunten”, p.15, New York Review of Books

  7 Copy quote

• Oh, whoever has been himself alone can never find another’s loneliness strange.

  Robert Walser

  Loneliness, Strange, Has Beens

  Robert Walser (2012). “Berlin Stories”, p.119, New York Review of Books

  6 Copy quote

• The novel I am constantly writing is always the same one, and it might be described as a variously sliced-up or torn-apart book of myself.

  Robert Walser

  Book, Writing, Torn Apart

  Robert Walser (2013). “The Walk”, p.10, Profile Books

  9 Copy quote

• This is freedom,' said the instructress, 'it's something very wintry, and cannot be borne for long. One must always keep moving, as we are doing here, one must dance in freedom. It is cold and beautiful. Never fall in love with it. That would only make you sad afterwards, for one can only be in the realm of freedom for a moment, no longer. Look how the wonderful track we are floating on is slowly melting away. Now you can watch freedom dying, if you open your eyes.

  Robert Walser

  Beautiful, Falling In Love, Moving

  Robert Walser (1969). “Jakob von Gunten: a novel”

  7 Copy quote

• I'd like to die listening to a piece of music. I imagine this as so easy, so natural, but naturally it's quite impossible. Notes stab too softly. The wounds they leave behind may smart, but they don't fester. Melancholy and pain trickle out instead of blood. When the notes cease, all is peaceful within me again.

  Robert Walser

  Pain, Smart, Blood

  Robert Walser (1990). “Masquerade and other stories”, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

  9 Copy quote

• I contemplated pride and love. All this contemplativeness. When will I be free of it?

  Robert Walser

  Pride, And Love

  4 Copy quote

• To the question: How do the authors of sketches, stories and novels get along in life, the following answer can or must be given: They are stragglers and they are down at heel.

  Robert Walser

  Stories, Answers, Given

  7 Copy quote

• It doesn't take much to show love, but at some time or another in your, praise God, disastrous life you must have felt, honestly and simply, what love is and how love likes to behave.

  Robert Walser

  Love Is, Likes, Praise

  Robert Walser (2013). “The Walk”, p.11, Profile Books

  4 Copy quote

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