Quotes by Elias Canetti

“All things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.”

“Death is a scandal. The machine is functioning, we are all hostages”

“It is always the enemy who started it, even if he was not the first to speak out, he was certainly planning it; and if he was not actually planning it, he was thinking of it; and, if he was not thi...”

“Every command consists of momentum and sting. The momentum forces the recipient to act, and to act in accordance with the content of the command; the sting remains behind in him. When a command fun...”

“Every command leaves behind a painful sting in the person who is forced to carry it out.”

“The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation, and it seems most true when it eschews artistic devices of any sort.”

“For I believe that part of knowledge is its desire to show itself and its refusal to put up with a merely hidden existence. I find mute knowledge dangerous, for it grows ever more mute and ultimate...”

“A tormenting thought: as of a certain point, history was no longer real. Without noticing it, all mankind suddenly left reality; everything happening since then was supposedly not true; but we supp...”

“There are books, that one has for twenty years without reading them, that one always keeps at hand, that one takes along from city to city, from country to country, carefully packed, even when ther...”

“Travelling, one accepts everything; indignation stays at home. One looks, one listens, one is roused to enthusiasm by the most dreadful things because they are new. Good travellers are heartless.”

“At home in the nursery, I usually played alone. Actually, I seldom played, I spoke to the wallpaper. The many dark circles in the pattern of the wallpaper seemed like people to me. I made up storie...”

“A head full of stars, just not in constellation yet.”

“The fluid boundary between individuals and types is a true concern of the real writer.”

“His meals were always punctual. Whether she cooked well or badly he did not know; it was a matter of total indifference to him. During his meals, which he ate at his writing desk, he was busy with ...”

“She was crude, but loyal. He began to understand her even better than before. A pity she was so old; it was too late to try to make a human being of her.”

“At this point, the jealousy that tortured me all my life commenced, and the force with which it came over me marked me forever. It became my true passion, utterly heedless of any attempts at convin...”

“Success listens only to applause. To all else it is deaf.”

“Success is the space one occupies in the newspaper. Success is one day's insolence.”

“All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.”

“His meals were always punctual. Whether she cooked well or badly he did not know; it was a matter of total indifference to him. During his meals, which he ate at his writing desk, he was busy with ...”