Imre Kertész: Existence

Imre Kertész was Hungarian writer. Explore interesting quotes on existence.
Imre Kertész: 122   quotes 8   likes

“How can we do justice even when it concerns truth itself, since for me only one truth exists, my truth, even if it is a delusion, yes, my delusion; my delusion.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

Truth , Justice

“It seems that only one philosophy can succeed the philosophy of existentialism: nonexistentialism, the philosophy of nonexistent existence.”

Imre Kertész

Source: Detective Story (2008), p. 30.
Context: I exist. Is this a life still? No, just vegetating. It seems that only one philosophy can succeed the philosophy of existentialism: nonexistentialism, the philosophy of nonexistent existence.

“Cognitively we don’t know and will never discover what occasions the cause of our existence, we don’t know the purpose of our existence and we don’t know why we have to disappear from here once we have been placed here, I don’t know, why I have to live this fragmentary existence, which happened to be my lot, instead of a life that perhaps does exist somewhere. Why did I get this lot? This sex, this body, this awareness, this geographic setting, this fate, this language, this history, this rented room?”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

Life , Fate , Sex , History

“I read somewhere; while God still existed one sustained a dialogue with God, and now that He no longer exists one has to sustain a dialogue with other people, I guess, or, better still, with oneself, that is to say, one talks or mumbles to oneself.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

God , People , Reading

“By way of that wretched sentence "Auschwitz cannot be explained" is the wretched author explaining that we should be silent concerning Auschwitz, that Auschwitz doesn’t exist, or, rather, that it didn’t, for the only facts that cannot be explained are those that don’t or didn’t exist.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

Way