The Black Obelisk Quotes
"Death is ineluctable, and such is human sorrow that it demands memorials of sandstone, marble, or even, of costly black Swedish granite polished on all sides."
"Warmth has a thawing effect—even on the purse."
"The important thing is not to sell but to buy and to be paid as quickly as possible. We live in an age of commodities. Money is an illusion; everyone knows that, but many still do not believe it."
"The war was four and a half years ago. At that time infinite misery made us human. Today the shameless lust for gain has made us robbers again."
"There are in the city some three or four firms that distill schnaps. To us they all taste more or less alike. Not so to Knopf; he can distinguish them even by smell."
"The Church thinks in centuries. We must accept that. After all, one works for God and not for money."
"The war changed that; since 1914 we live scraps of one life and then scraps of a second and a third; they do not belong together and we are not able to put them together."
"But who really knows how to play, and if he does know, what good is it to him? Is the great dark less dark for that, are the unanswerable questions less inscrutable?"
"The vultures flock from all sides, and the only ones who come out on top are those who accumulate debts. The debts disappear of themselves."
"You cannot simply push it away. It keeps bobbing back disconcertingly, and then you are confronted by irreconcilable contrast: the skies of childhood and the science of killing, lost youth and the cynicism of knowledge gained too young."
"People do so many things without knowing why."
"Man lives by dreams. Haven’t you found that out yet?"
"The God of forgiveness... Who is always ready to forgive and Who has given His own son to redeem mankind."
"Each of us has his own death and must suffer it alone; no one can help him then."
"You oughtn’t to have noticed her at all. But you had to keep on staring over at her."
"What makes you so sure? After all, you can’t see it when you are away."
"A single second is enough to reconcile oneself with God."
"Man, the eternal liar, finds brilliant scope for his particular talent when death occurs."
"A rich profiteer is better than a poor but honest employee."
"Wealth and honesty don't go together, baby! Not these days! Probably they never did."
"Because I don’t care about character, I love comfort and security."
"All women lie, when they don’t they’re not worth bothering about."
"How can you marry a woman who’s capable at any minute of roaring at you like a general?"
"When it’s dark and she cuts loose with that drill sergeant’s voice of hers, cold shivers run up my back."
"Why don’t you make more money than the others if that’s what’s bothering you?"
"God keeps a record? Of whom? Of Himself? Why?"
"If everyone were happy, there would be no more need of God."
"Every man has some good qualities. You just have to bring them out."
"It’s a good thing to know that one more sense would knock all our conclusions into a cocked hat."
"Every murder, every killing, is the first killing in the world."
"If we had won the war, then of course we would have deluged our enemies with love and gifts, wouldn’t we?"
"Always someone else is to blame, not you. You stink of self-righteousness, you Pharisees!"
"Why don’t we explode like fireworks? If we really knew what life is, we would explode!"
"Time is a prejudice. That is the secret of life. People just don’t know it."
"Misfortune is not the fact that two can never become wholly one. Misfortune is the fact that we must continually abandon each other."
"Simple faith in the Trinity can’t blind everyone to the fact that we’re busily preparing for another war."
"Proofs can be found for every preconceived opinion."
"All I have learned in my life so far is to prize tolerance."
"We only recognize things as long as each of us is still an I."
"The dollar exchange is like death. You can’t escape it."
"Hunger is the best sauce, as they say, and it's true."
"Sometimes the simplest things are the most profound."
"Love is perhaps the desire to hand on something which one cannot keep."
"Nothing that exists can ever be lost. Not ever."
"Life begins when we realize that nothing remains."
"We have no choice but to believe in the permanence of what we love."
"The fear of life oozes out of all your bones like sweat."
"One sight of a thunderhead and he would reach for the telephone."
"We have so many words. Who invented them all?"
"The people in there have captured Him. He can't get out."
"Life with its cries of passion, its deaths, and its ecstasies."
"You only see dreams when you are asleep. What becomes of them during the day?"
"Everything, Rudolf. But you know about it too!"
"Otherwise one could not love. Love is perhaps the desire to hand on something which one cannot keep."
"They were always together and they shall stay together."
"The days of palaces are over, Herr Riesenfeld."
"It's a wonder he hasn't been dead long since."
"One man’s destroyer is another’s nightingale."
"Never do anything complicated when something simple will serve as well."
"We were celebrating already, were you? I’ll teach you!"
"It's a shame to waste them on the universe at large."
"What arrogance, to believe that a life has a beginning and an end!"
"A life is never saved singly, it is always bound up with others."
"We die a little each day, but each day we have lived a little longer too."
"We have nothing to reproach ourselves for; our directions are different, but that, too, is only an appearance, for no one can betray death, one can only endure it."
"He who does not try to hold on to anything possesses everything."
"Eyesight is not about trusting them, it's about seeing the reality."
"Each time you are right, you are one step closer to death."
"Money is very important, especially when you haven't got it."