Quotes
List here any quote, from Thomas Mann's book Buddenbrooks.
Quotes that inspire you, or give you a strong visual image, or maybe you just admire the author's use of words . . . poetic, lyrical, straightforward, cultural, etc . . .
We are reading Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family in celebration of Thomas Mann's birthday, June 6, 1875 "If you are possessed by an idea you find it expressed everywhere, you even smell it."
A family has to be united, to hold together . . . otherwise evil will come knocking at the door.
ReplyDeleteMy son, show zeal for each day’s affairs of business, but only for such that make for a peaceful night’s sleep.
ReplyDeleteThe sea roared in a muffled monotone, and little whitecaps sparkled now and then in the distance.
ReplyDeleteThere will always be people for whom this sort of interest in oneself, this probing observation of one’s own sensibilities, is appropriate —poets, for instance, who are capable of expressing the inner life, which they prize so much, with assurance and beauty, thereby enriching the emotional life of other people.
ReplyDeleteOn the wall beside the bed, between two old etchings of the medieval town, was a framed motto that read: “Commit thy ways unto the Lord.” But is that any comfort when you are lying open eyed at midnight and, alone and without advice from anyone, you must answer yes or no, must decide the one question that will determine the rest of your life —and not just your life alone?
ReplyDeleteIt was a late November day, a cold autumn day with a hazy sky that seemed to threaten snow, and with rolling swatches of fog that pierced now and then by the sun, the kind of day when the northeast wind whistled spitefully as it swooped around the massive corners of the churches and offered pneumonia at bargain rates to the seaport’s inhabitants.
ReplyDeleteWe’re only as young or old as we feel. And when something good we’ve longed for finally does come along, it lumbers in a little too late somehow, loaded down with petty, annoying, upsetting details, covered with all the grime of reality that we never really imagined, and that is so irritating —irritating.
ReplyDeleteMy son, show zeal for each day’s affairs of business, but only for such that make for a peaceful night’s sleep.
ReplyDeleteWhen it all came raining down on him, he would remember the sea and the hotel gardens, and just the brief thought of the sound that the little waves made in the still of the evening —coming from far away, from some remote distance wrapped in mysterious slumber to splash against the rampart—would comfort him, put him out of reach of all life’s hardships.
ReplyDeleteDeath was a blessing, so great, so deep that we can fathom it only at those moments, like this one now, when we are reprieved from it. It was the return home from long, unspeakably painful wanderings, the correction of a great error, the loosening of tormenting chains, the removal of barriers —it set a horrible accident to rights again.
ReplyDeleteI bear within me the seed, the rudiments, the possibility of life’s capacities and endeavors. Where might I be, if I were not here? Who, what, how could I be, if I were not me, if this outward appearance that is me did not encase me, separating my consciousness from that of others who are not me? An organism —a blind, rash, pitiful eruption of the assertion of the will. Far better, really, if that will were to drift free in the night without time or space, than to languish in a prison cell lit only by the flickering, uncertain flame of the intellect.
ReplyDelete. . . he lay there —saddened, exasperated, and incensed at the brutal necessity of having to leave his warm bed in the raw half light and venture out into a miserable, dangerous world filled with stern and spiteful people. “Oh, can’t I have just two more little minutes?” he asked his pillow with lavish tenderness. And then, in a fit of defiance, he gave himself another five —he just wanted to close his eyes a little. But from time to time he opened them and gazed in despair at the minute hand inching forward in its stupid, ignorant, precise way.
ReplyDeleteI’m not afraid of failing, I’m afraid of the whole brouhaha that goes with it.
ReplyDelete