Quotes from Imre Kertesz

It was not very likely, of course, but then all kinds of things are possible, after all.

I have felt that some sort of awful shame is attached to my name and that I have somehow brought this shame along from somewhere I have never been, and that I have carried this sin as my sin even though I have never committed it; this sin pursues me all my life, which life is undoubtedly not my own even thought I live it , I suffer from it die of it.

I already know there will be happiness. For even there, next to the chimneys, in the intervals between the torments, there was something that resembled happiness. Everyone asks only about the hardships and the "atrocities," whereas for me perhaps it is that experience which will remain the most memorable. Yes, the next time I am asked, I ought to speak about that, the happiness of the concentration camps.

I believe in writing — nothing else; just writing. Man may live like a worm, but he writes like a god. There was a time when that secret was known, but now it has been forgotten; the world is composed of disintegrating fragments, an incoherent dark chaos, sustained by writing alone.

I can see the young man on dizzily autumn mornings, the fog of which he inhaled just like the rapidly evaporating freedom.

the confines of prison walls cannot impose boundaries on the flights of one's fantasy

Des quantités de livres dorment ainsi en moi, des bons et des mauvais, de tout genre. Des phrases, des mots, des alinéas et des vers qui, pareils à des locataires remuants, reviennent brusquement à la vie, errent solitaires ou entament dans ma tête de bruyants bavardages que je suis incapable de faire taire.

Srce mi je teško poput kamenih blokova stepenica.

La lecture est comme une drogue qui confère un agréable flou au cruels contours de la vie.

Er erklärte mir, der Faschismus habe doch auch viele Menschen aus dem Proletariat getäuscht und sie müßten aufgeklärt, wie er sagte: 'umerzogen' werden, denn es handle sich um 'entwicklungsfähige Proletarier', die auf den richtigen Weg gebracht werden müßten.

I would like to live a little bit longer in this beautiful concentration camp.

The West in general should stand up more for its own values. It is not always worthwhile to compromise.