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Quotes from Wonderful, Wonderful Times — Elfriede Jelinek

born 1946 Austria

← All quotes by Elfriede Jelinek

19 quotes

Nothing is natural, yet everything is as it is by nature.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

Intellectuals will still go on emphasizing free will even when they’ve got nothing left to eat.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

Murder and assault are not lunacy; they are the logical conclusions if you live a life without an assured financial foundation.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

In this new era, what sets you free is knowledge, not work.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

The rules of art do not exist, because what makes art art is the fact that it obeys no rules at all.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

In the case of a writer like Musil writing is often a graceful act,like a silvery fish leaping.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

Money is unimportant, but it is reassuring to have it.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

For the eyes are the mirror of the soul and ought to remain unscathed if at all possible. Otherwise people will suppose the soul is done for.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

Every man would like to possess all the women in the world, but a woman only wants the man she loves and to whom she is faithful.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

In the old days people had no time to harm the environment because they were busy doing harm to themselves, in the War, for instance.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

Death the Laveller annihilates all distinctions.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

Work is not a constraint.Man's activity provides his true fulfilment. True fulfilment however,can only be achieved if one man is not another man's slave.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

There are photographs under the pistol, showing his mother genitals. These genitals make no perceptible impression on him, though it was through them that he first entered the world.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

There is no such thing as the universal ‘Man’ never has been, never will be, there is the worker and there is the one who exploits the worker and those who abet him.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

The poet is a king in his realm. His is empire of imagination, in which there are unlimited mansions.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

Time stands still for man and woman alike, it is a good moment, because Time usually makes everything worse, poor people grow old, rich people can buy a little time but they can'hold it up for good, it always catches up with them. In the last analysis, Time is democratic.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

The world would be a lot better off if it paid more attention to its philosophers and artists than to its own tiny egotistic spirit, which lacks an overview. People should place their belief in Beethoven and Socrates.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

weak are defeated by the strong in the world of Nature. A reed by the north wind, for instance. And silence by the forest.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

The most powerful urge known to Man is the urge to be free of manual labour. Any means that accomplishes that end is fine. Some people erroneously imagine that they have a birthright to non-manual work.

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

Attribution

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