48 Quotes by Ingeborg Bachmann

No new world without a new language.

The children are in love but do not know with what. They talk in gibberish, muse themselves into an indefinable pallor, and when they are completely at a loss they invent a language that maddens them. My fish. My hook. My fox. My snare. My fire. You my water. You my current. My earth. You my if. And you my but. Either. Or. My everything...my everything...They push one another, go for each other with their fists and scuffle over a counter-word that doesn't exist.

The facts that make the world real-- these depend on the unreal in order to be recognised by it.

As it was all was lost. He was alive, yes, he was alive, he felt this for the first time. But he knew now that he was living in a prison, that he had to make the best of it in there and would soon rage and would have to speak this thieves' cant, the only language at his disposal, in order not to be so abandoned.

...the simple task of getting dressed and undressed was a real strain, but nothing could compare with her addiction to deep sleep...

...we take care not to touch each other in public, nor do we look into each other's eyes except furtively, because Ivan must first wash my eyes with his own, removing the images which landed on my retina before his arrival.

In the end he'll find out what's going on with me, since we still have the rest of our lives. Maybe not ahead of us, maybe just today, but we do have our lives, there's no doubt about that.

Elisabeth had not had her future and her parents had not had theirs, there was nothing to this so-called future which was always promised to the young.

Now the journey is ending,the wind is losing heart.Into your hands it's falling,a rickety house of cards.The cards are backed with picturesdisplaying all the world.You've stacked up all the imagesand shuffled them with words.And how profound the playingthat once again begins!Stay, the card you're drawingis the only world you'll win.