Skip to content

Quotes from The Piano Teacher — Elfriede Jelinek

born 1946 Austria

← All quotes by Elfriede Jelinek

17 quotes

First the masters died, now their music is dying, because people only want to listen to pop, rock, and punk.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

Every child instinctively heads toward dirt and filth unless you pull it back.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

For the first thing a proprietor learns, and painfully at that, is: Trust is fine, but control is better.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

There are no holidays for art; and that’s just fine with the artist.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

Sometimes, of course, art creates the suffering in the first place.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

Better to wear worn shoes than to polish the boots of shop owner.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

Just keep following my tears, and the brook will take you in.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

The criteria of art are the imponderable, the immeasurable.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

Art and order, the relative that refuse to relate.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

The artist is lonesome and admits his solitude.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

Of course, art turns many people away for there has to be a limit. The limits between the gifted and the ungifted.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

Pain itself is merely a consequence of the desire for pleasure, the desire t destroy, to annihilate; in its supreme form, pain is a variety of pleasure.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

Der Sensible muß verbrennen, dieser zarte Nachtfalter.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

When discussing Bach’s six Brandenburg concertos, the artistically aware person usually states, among other things, that when these masterpieces were composed, the stars were dancing in heavens. God and his dwelling place are always involved whenever these people talk about Bach.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

Don’t start anything you can’t finish.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

Art is not a Trojan horse.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

I have a feeling that you despise your body and that you only value art, you only value your argent needs, but eating and sleeping aren’t enough. You believe that your appearance is your enemy, and the only friend you have is music. Why look just in the mirror, look at your reflection, you’ll never find a better friend that yourself.

The Piano Teacher (1988)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Elfriede Jelinek (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.