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I took a stroll in the city. It was infernally hot. The usual evening hubbub around me. Lovers on the pavements, hurrying to cinemas and other places of amusement as if nothing had happened, nothing. Living their nonexistent lives. Or do they exit, and it’s me who doesn’t.

— Imre Kertész Detective Story (2008)

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More quotes by Imre Kertész

Talking is not enough; words don’t clarify anything. I’ll have to hit upon something, but what?

Detective Story (2008)

On the other hand, what is really irrational and what truly cannot be explained is not evil but, contrarily, the good.

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

If people had understood the greatness of those works, they would have destroyed them long ago.

Liquidation (2003)

I exist. Is this a life still? No, just vegetating. It seems that only one philosophy can succeed the philosophy of existentialism: nonexistentialism, the philosophy of nonexistent existence.

Detective Story (2008)

Of course, living is another way of killing oneself: its drawback is that it takes so horribly long.

Detective Story (2008)

All Imre Kertész quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Imre Kertész (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.