Elfriede Jelinek: Trending quotes

“Of course, art turns many people away for there has to be a limit. The limits between the gifted and the ungifted.”

p 2
Women As Lovers (1994)

“Sometimes, of course, art creates the suffering in the first place.”

P 27
The Piano Teacher (1988)

“We are monsters, even if we disguise ourselves as ordinary people. We are the children of ordinary people but we are not content with that. Inwardly we are consumed with wickedness, outwardly we are grammar school pupils.”

P 23
The Piano Teacher (1988)

“The artist is lonesome and admits his solitude.”

Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

“Every child instinctively heads toward dirt and filth unless you pull it back.”

P 24
The Piano Teacher (1988)

“One suffers work, even if one enjoys doing it.”

P 24
The Piano Teacher (1988)

“Better to wear worn shoes than to polish the boots of shop owner.”

P 34
Women As Lovers (1994)

“A sensitive person gets burned, like a delicate moth.”

P 30
The Piano Teacher (1988)

“In the old days people had no time to harm the environment because they were busy doing harm to themselves, in the War, for instance.”

Der Sensible muß verbrennen, dieser zarte Nachtfalter.
P 71
The Piano Teacher (1988)

“The world would be a lot better off if it paid more attention to its philosophers and artists than to its own tiny egotistic spirit, which lacks an overview. People should place their belief in Beethoven and Socrates.”

60
Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

“Vice is basically the love of failure.”

p 40
Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

“The rules of art do not exist, because what makes art art is the fact that it obeys no rules at all.”

Source: Pianolærerinnen

“He lies like a book. And he reads a lot of books.”

p 44
Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

“I have a feeling that you despise your body and that you only value art, you only value your argent needs, but eating and sleeping aren’t enough. You believe that your appearance is your enemy, and the only friend you have is music. Why look just in the mirror, look at your reflection, you’ll never find a better friend that yourself.”

Source: Wonderful, Wonderful Times

“Nothing is natural, yet everything is as it is by nature.”

P 65
The Piano Teacher (1988)

“I don’t know if it’s enough for a whole life, a man wants to enjoy many women, a man is different.”

p 48
Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

“sewing in itself is already in the women's blood.”

P 26
Women As Lovers (1994)

“The criteria of art are the imponderable, the immeasurable.”

p 3
Women As Lovers (1994)

“Time stands still for man and woman alike, it is a good moment, because Time usually makes everything worse, poor people grow old, rich people can buy a little time but they can'hold it up for good, it always catches up with them. In the last analysis, Time is democratic.”

P 118
The Piano Teacher (1988)