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Everything one has forgotten cries for help in the dream.

— Elias Canetti

Alles, was man vergessen hat, schreit im Traum um Hilfe.

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Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Die Provinz des Menschen : Aufzeichnungen 1942–1972, München 1973, p. 269
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

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Relearn astonishment, stop grasping for knowledge, lose the habit of the past.

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Say the most personal thing, say it, nothing else matters, don’t be ashamed, the generalities can be found in the newspaper.

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I love writers who limit themselves, who write beneath their intelligence.

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He sometimes tells himself that there is nothing more to be said, simply because he won’t get around to saying it.—How contemptible!

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“Life experience” does not amount to very much and could be learned from novels alone, e.g., from Balzac, without any help from life.

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The unconscious, which those who always speak of it least possess.

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Everything you rejected and pushed aside—take it up again.

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When he has nothing to say, he lets words speak.

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His great holy books, which he does not know. They are so holy that he does not dare to open them.

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It amazes me how a person to whom literature means anything can take it up as an object of study.

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Ambition is the death of thought.

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He will not do death the honor of taking it into account.

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If one has lived long enough, there is danger of succumbing to the word “God” merely because it was always there.

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Attribution

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