97 Quotes by Robert Walser

Your very eyes. How they have always been for me the command to obey, the inviolable and beautiful commandment. No, no, I'm not telling lies. Your appearance in the doorway!...You have been my body's health. Whenever I have read a book, it was you I was reading, not the book, you were the book. You were, you were.

Everything dreamed because it was alive, and everything lived because it was permitted to dream.

I feel how little it concerns me, everything that’s called "the world," and how grand and exciting what I privately call the world is to me.

Je bescheidener meine Wohnung war, um so eleganter wirkte alle Eleganz auf mich, um so künstlerischer erschienen mir Schöpfungen aus dem Gebiet der Kunst, und Freunde und Liebe kamen mir um so freundlicher und liebenswürdiger vor.

Artists, as a rule, understand nothing about business, or, for some reason or other, they aren’t allowed to understand anything about it.

God goes with thoughtless people.

I'd like to die listening to a piece of music. I imagine this as so easy, so natural, but naturally it's quite impossible. Notes stab too softly. The wounds they leave behind may smart, but they don't fester. Melancholy and pain trickle out instead of blood. When the notes cease, all is peaceful within me again.

After a spent day, Iwalked back in a fever.The whole way homethe sun touched my cheeks.The blissful evening glowspread across the meadowsand I called this lightthe blood I shed.My hot burning blood layconsoling the entire world.So I walked with pride--Now that all was tilled.I didn't know what was happening,I leaned against a fence post,in my blood that coveredthe meadows near and far.

They should not clench their fists,it’s my longing that’s drawing me near to them;they should not stand there full of rage,my longing is timidly drawing near to them;they should not be ready to pounce like vicious dogs,as if they wanted to tear my longing to shreds;they should not threaten with broad sleeves,that pains my longing.Why have they suddenly changed?As great and deep is my longing.No matter how difficult, no matter how menacing:I must reach them and I’m already there.