118 Quotes by Max Frisch

Ich bin auf Erfahrungen angewiesen, die ich nicht begrifflich fassen kann, die mich hilflos machen und von daher narrativ.

A joke is a good camouflage. Next best comes sentiment... But the best camouflage of all - in my opinion - is the plain and simple truth. Because nobody ever believes it.

You can put anything into words, except your own life

Oh, this yearning to be white, this yearning to have straight hair, this lifelong striving to be different from the way one is created this great difficulty in accepting oneself, I knew it and saw only my own longing from outside, saw the absurdity of our yearning to be different from what we are...

If you criticize what you’re doing too early you’ll never write the first line.”[Paris Review, interview with Jodi Daynard, The Art of Fiction No. 113, Winter II 1989]

Wer sich nicht mit Politik befasst, hat die politische Parteinahme, die er sich sparen wollte, bereits vollzogen.

Sabeth listened when I told her about my experiences, but as one listens to an old man; without interrupting, politely, without believing, without getting excited.

Sie wird gebraucht, unsere Schuld, sie rechtfertigt viel im Leben anderer.

The ants Geiser recently observed under a dripping fir tree are not concerned with what anyone might know about them; nor were the dinosaurs, which died out before a human being set eyes on them. All the papers, whether on the wall or on the carpet, can go. Who cares about the Holocene? Nature needs no names. Geiser knows that. The rocks do not need his memory.