Quotes from Daniel Kehlmann

?i noi to?i, care ne uitam în sus, am în?eles deodat? ce înseamn? lejeritatea. Am în?eles cum poate fi via?a pentru unul care face cu adev?rat ce î?i dore?te, nu crede în nimic ?i nu ascult? de nimeni. Am priceput cum ar fi s? fii un astfel de om ?i am mai priceput c? noi nu vom fi niciodat? astfel de oameni.

Nimeni n-o s? te ?tie, se gânde?te ea. Nimeni n-o s?-?i aminteasc? de tine, doar eu, mama ta, n-o s? uit, fiindc? n-am voie s? uit. Pentru c? to?i ceilal?i or s? te uite.

The eyes are not windows. There are nerve impulses, but no one reads them, counts them, translates them, and ruminates about them. Hunt for as long as you want, there's nobody home. The world is contained within you, and you're not there.

În realitate, nimic nu te re?ine acolo unde toat? lumea crede c? trebuie s? r?mâi.

What is death? Fundamentally it is not extinction and those seconds when life ends, but the slow decline that precedes it, that creeping debility that extends over years: the time in which a person is still there and yet not there, in which he can still imagine that although his prime is long since past, it lingers yet. So circumspectly has nature organized our death!

It was both odd and injust, a real example of the pitiful arbitrariness of existence, that you were born into a particular time and held prisoner there whether you wanted it or not. It gave you an indecent advantage over the past and made you a clown vis-a-vis the future.

Sen mä vaan sanon, että jollei meikä olis näin rauhallinen tyyppi, niin siis joskus tosissaan pumppu haulikko, helvetti irti, niska laukaus ja murha poltto, ja täyttä häkää sittekki.

Writing a novel, said Humboldt, seemed to him the perfect way to capture the most fleeting essence of the present for the future.

He looks around, he suddenly recognizes in his colleagues what others see in him: tax officials. And he is one of them. How could it have happened that he became a tax official? On the computer he looks at pictures from his school days. Back then he wasn't a tax official yet.

In der mittelalterlichen Kunst entspricht das Aussehen der Menschen ihren Seelen: die Bösen hässlich, die Guten schön. Das neunzehnte Jahrhundert hat uns beigebracht, das sei Unsinn. Aber mit ein bisschen Lebenserfahrung merkt man, es ist gar nicht so falsch.

Giacché ci troviamo al mondo senza che nessuno ce lo abbia chiesto, tanto vale provare a realizzare qualcosa.

Man kann dem Schrecken gegenübertreten, bis er nachgibt und sich zurückzieht.

Du kannst was man können muss, aber du bist leer.

Sweat was running down my face. The next turn wasn't too bad, and I noticed an old barn on the roadside, the roof caved-in, the windows empty holes, but I had already been distracted for too long, and the abyss came so close that I cried out. I

Of course it didn't prove anything of the sort, it merely showed that self-examination disturbs the personality, deflects the will, and zaps the mind; it proved that no one, seen clearly from the outside, resembles themselves at all.

Fatum. Veliko F. Ali slu?aj je mo?na sila. ?ovek odjednom dobije sudbinu koja nije njemu namenjena. Neku vrstu slu?ajne sudbine

Which is better, to cover the earth with a carpet or to put on shoes?

Stories within stories within stories. You never know where one ends and another begins! In truth, they all flow into one another. It's only in books that they're clearly divided.

Das, dachte er, ist es. Leben müssen, obgleich alles vorbei ist. Disponieren, organisieren: jeden Tag, jede Stunde und Minute. Als hätte es noch Sinn

Pitao sam se da li bi ljudi koji tako rado govore o dostojanstvu u ovakvoj situaciji mogli sa?uvati red i pristojnost. Što se mene ti?e, ja sam ostao na tepihu ose?aju?i da živim trenutak u kome mi je sve potaman, u kome nisam pocepan, u kome sam u sebi jedinstven i spokojan. A onda mi je u deli?u sekunde na pamet pala misao da i u ovoj sobi možda postoji kamera, a sa njom se odmah pojavio i Laurin lik i ose?aj krivice što je varam i stalno lažem.

Erzählen, das bedeutet einen Bogen spannen, wo zunächst keiner ist, den Entwicklungen Struktur und Folgerichtigkeit gerade dort verleihen, wo die Wirklichkeit nichts davon bietet.

Die Menschen sind gutgläubig, sie erwarten keinen Betrug. Wer hört schon einem anderen zu, wer konzentriert sich aufs Gerede des Nächsten, alle sind doch mit den Gedanken anderswo.

You business', sagte er dann. 'Kill why?' Sie lächelte, um zu zeigen, dass sie nicht verstand. 'Everything', sagte der Mann. 'Foam. Lorry?' Sie hob die Schultern. 'Hobble', sagte der Mann. 'Hobble grease. Why?' Sie lächelte verkrampft. 'Why?' Der Mann klopfte an die Scheibe. 'Grease, the hobble why!

Humboldt disse che anche lui voleva viaggiare. Forster annuì. È un desiderio che provano in tanti, disse. E tutti se ne pentono. Perché? Perché non si ritorna mai.