“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.”

—  Imre Kertész , book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I have felt that some sort of awful shame is attached to my name and that I have somehow brought this shame along from …" by Imre Kertész?
Imre Kertész photo
Imre Kertész 61
Hungarian writer 1929–2016

Related quotes

Ferdinand Marcos photo

“I have committed many sins in my life. But stealing money from the government, from the people, is not one of them.”

Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989) former President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986

in an interview on ABC
1965

George S. Patton photo

“I have sinned and I have suffered,
Played the hero and the knave;
Fought for belly, shame, or country,
And for each have found a grave. I cannot name my battles
For the visions are not clear,
Yet, I see the twisted faces
And I feel the rending spear.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

Through A Glass, Darkly (1918)

“I have long been convinced in my own mind that the enslaving of Africans brought from Africa or those born in this country is unjust; and it is one of the sins of the land, and I would endeavor to free my estate from the cry of such a sin against it.”

Jonathan Todd (1713–1791) American Congregational minister

Source: His will, Feburary 3, 1791, quoted in Biographical sketches of the graduates of Yale College by Franklin Bowditch Dexter, vol. 1, p. 468 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015006955192&view=1up&seq=482

“All my life, I thought I was a Conservative. Now I know that I have never been one. The scales have dropped from my eyes.”

Keith Joseph (1918–1994) British barrister and politician

Obituary http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-lord-joseph-1387217.html, The Independent, Monday 12 December 1994.
1990s

Jan Hus photo

“God is my witness that I have never taught or preached that which false witnesses have testified against me. He knows that the great object of all my preaching and writing was to convert men from sin. In the truth of that gospel which hitherto I have written, taught and preached, I now joyfully die.”

Jan Hus (1369–1415) Czech linguist, religion writer, theologist, university educator and science writer

Jan Hus (1415); quoted in: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature, Volume 12, 1891, p. 401

Tom Baker photo

“All my life I have felt myself to be on the edge of things. All my life I have suffered from bad dreams. All my life I have had difficulty in knowing whether I am awake or in a nightmare.”

Tom Baker (1934) English actor
Osamu Dazai photo

“I thought, “I want to die. I want to die more than ever before. There’s no chance now of a recovery. No matter what sort of thing I do, no matter what I do, it’s sure to be a failure, just a final coating applied to my shame. That dream of going on bicycles to see a waterfall framed in summer leaves—it was not for the likes of me. All that can happen now is that one foul, humiliating sin will be piled on another, and my sufferings will become only the more acute. I want to die. I must die. Living itself is the source of sin.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

The Third Notebook:Part Two
No Longer Human

Charles Kingsley photo

“I have fought my fight, I have lived my life,
I have drunk my share of wine;
From Trier to Köln there was never a knight
Had a merrier life than mine.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Quoted in Albert Jay Nock's Memoirs of a Superfluous Man (1943), p. 54.
Attributed

Berthe Morisot photo

“I have descended to the depths of suffering, and it seems to me that after that one cannot help being raised up. But I have spent the last three nights weeping. Pity! Pity! Remembrance is the true imperishable life... I should like to live my life over again, to record it, to admit my weaknesses; no, this is useless; I have sinned, I have suffered, I have atoned for it. I could write only a bad novel by relating what has been related a thousand times.”

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) painter from France

Quote from Berthe's Morisot's letter, 1887 - after the death of her husband Eugène Manet
1881 - 1895

Related topics