Peter Handke

“Though nothing much had happened, he felt that he had seen and experienced enough that day - thus securing his tomorrow. For today he required no more, no sight or conversation, and above all nothing new. Just to rest, to close his eyes and ears; just to inhale and exhale would be effort enough. He wished it was bedtime. Enough of being in the light and out of doors; he wanted to be in the dark, in the house, in his room. But he had also had enough of being alone; he felt, as time passed, that he was experiencing every variety of madness and that his head was bursting. He recalled how, years ago, when it had been his habit to taken afternoon walks on lonely bypaths, a strange uneasiness had taken possession of him, leading him to believe that he had dissolved in the air and ceased to exist.”

“Once the writer was at the deathbed of a fellow writer. What interested his dying colleague more than anything else was what was being said in the cultural section of the newspapers. Did these battles of opinion take his mind off his illness by infuriating him or making him laugh? Did they put him in mind of an eternal repetition, preferable after all to what was in store for him? There was more to it than that. Even in his hopeless situation, far-removed as he was from the editorial offices, he was their prisoner; more than his nearest and dearest, the critics and editors were the object of his dreams; and in the intervals when he was free from pain, he would ask, since by then he was incapable of reading, what one publication or another had said about some new book. The intrigues, and the almost pleasurable fury they aroused in the sufferer - who saw through them - brought a kind of world, a certain permanence into the sickroom, and the man at his bedside understood his vituperating or silently nodding friend as well as if it had been his own self lying there. But later, when the end was near and the dying man still insisted on having opinions read out to him from the latest batch of newspapers, the witness vowed that he would never let things come to such a pass with him as they had with his image and likeness. Never again would he involve himself in this circuit of classifications and judgments, the substance of which was almost exclusively the playing off of one writer or school against another. Over the years since then, he had derived pride and satisfaction from staying on the outside and carrying on by his own strength rather than at the expense of rivals. The mere thought of returning to the circuit or to any of the persistently warring cliques made him feel physically ill. Of course, he would never get entirely away from them, for even today, so long after his vow, he suddenly caught sight of a word that he at first mistook for his name. But today at least he was glad - as he would not have been years ago - to have been mistaken. Lulled in security, he leafed through the local section and succeeded in giving his mind to every single news item.”

“Die Müdigkeit als das Mehr des weniger Ich.”

“It was nearly winter. I had just seen a friend die, and was again beginning to take pleasure in my own existence. This friend, who thought of himself as the "first man to experience pain", had nevertheless tried up to the last moment to wish death away. I was thankful for all things and decreed: Enjoy yourself, take advantage of your days of good health.”

“كنا نخوض لأول مرة تجربة العيش كجماعة , وحتى ضجر أيام الاسبوع العادية كان يكتسب جو الاحتفال وكأن كل ما كان حتى ذلك الحين مبهما وغريبا بات يطمئن إلى تناسق وانسجام ,كان كل شيء ينتظم بصلة ما حتى العمل الآلي الرتيب يصبح له معنى , معني الاحتفال , حتى الحركات التي نؤديها تتناغم مع إيقاع رياضي لأننا كنا نتخيل أن آخرين , لا يحصى عددهم , يؤدون الحركة نفسها في الوقت ذاته , وكان هذا يضفي على العيش شكلا من المتانة يشعر المرء معه بأنه يستند إلى ذراع قوية ولكنها طليقة في آن”

“If a nation loses its storytellers, it loses its childhood.”

“‎Gelähmt schon vom Morgengrauen, treibt ein Bündel Elend, im Augenblick des Auslaufs gekentert sein Schiff mit dem Namen 'Abenteuer des Tages', in den Wassern des Vormittags, kommt zum Bewußtsein nicht einmal der Stille des Mittags und liegt, von der Zwischenzeit zu schweigen, am Ende, an eben der Stelle, von welcher unser Held 'in aller Herrgottsfrühe' eigentlich hätte aufbrechen sollen, fest in der Nacht - und auch die Wörter und Bilder, sein Scheitern am Tag weiterzugeben, gibt es nicht, es sei denn die schalgewordenen und ausgeschöpften Allegorien wie gerade eben."Peter Handke: Versuch über den geglückten Tag. Ein Wintertagtraum. Frankfurt am Main 1991, S. 32.”

“Meine Wissenschaft gibt mir Wachträume, die andere nicht einmal im Schlafen haben."Peter Handke: Langsame Heimkehr. Erzählung. Frankfurt am Main 1994, S. 63.”

“Ich spüre das Unwissen immer wieder als eine Not; und daraus entsteht dann der ziellose Wissensdrang, aus dem keine Idee wird, weil er eben keinen 'Gegenstand' hat, mit dem er 'übereinstimmen' könnte. - Aber dann gibt vielleicht ein einzelnes Ding etwas zu verstehen und setzt so den 'Geist des Anfangs'; und es kann ernst werden mit dem Studieren, das doch bei aller sonstigen Beschäftigung eine Sehnsucht geblieben war."Peter Handke: Die Lehre der Sainte-Victoire. Frankfurt am Main 1984, S. 28.”

“These "so thats," "becauses," and "whens" were like regulations; in decided to avoid them in order not to--”

“No one can be trusted who isn't thrilled with himself at least now and then.”