Elias Canetti Quotes

A child ... opens and closes like a blossom. — Elias Canetti

Seizing and incorporating ... There is nothing about us which is more strongly primitive. [p. 203] — Elias Canetti

People's fates are simplified by their names. — Elias Canetti

He would like to start from scratch. Where is scratch? — Elias Canetti

The fluid boundary between individuals and types is a true concern of the real writer. — Elias Canetti

You draw closer to truth by shutting yourself off from mankind. — Elias Canetti

The business friend did not recognize the sewerman, which was not surprising as the man's face was no more than a shining turd. — Elias Canetti

His head is made of stars, but not yet arranged into constellations. — Elias Canetti

One should use praise to recognize what one is not. — Elias Canetti

Justice requires that everyone should have enough to eat. But it also requires that everyone should contribute to the production of food. — Elias Canetti

Understanding, as we understand it, is misunderstanding. — Elias Canetti

Success is the space one occupies in the newspaper. Success is one day's insolence. — Elias Canetti

As if one could know the good a person is capable of, when one doesn't know the bad he might do. — Elias Canetti

There is something fluid about [packs] during the course of any individual manifestation. [p. 127] — Elias Canetti

The fear of burglars is not only the fear of being robbed, but also the fear of a sudden and unexpected clutch out of the darkness. — Elias Canetti

Of all the words in all languages I know, the greatest concentration is in the English word I. — Elias Canetti

History portrays everything as if it could not have come otherwise. History is on the side of what happened. — Elias Canetti

Since the death of his daughter, a consumptive, he had not thrashed a woman; he lived alone. — Elias Canetti

The planet's survival has become so uncertain that any effort, any thought that presupposes an assured future amounts to a mad gamble. — Elias Canetti

Success listens only to applause. To all else it is deaf. — Elias Canetti

Rulers who want to unleash war know very well that they must procure or invent a first victim. — Elias Canetti

It is important to say all the great thoughts again, without knowing that they have already been said. — Elias Canetti

I want to keep smashing myself until I am whole. — Elias Canetti

The hand which scoops up the water is the first vessel. The fingers of both hands intertwined are the first basket. [p. 217] — Elias Canetti

One needs time to free oneself of wrong convictions. If it happens too suddenly, they go on festering. — Elias Canetti

Words are not too old, only people are too old if they use the same words too frequently. — Elias Canetti

Death is a scandal. The machine is functioning, we are all hostages — Elias Canetti

I try to imagine someone saying to Shakespeare, 'Relax! — Elias Canetti

Pessimists are not boring. Pessimists are right. Pessimists are superfluous. — Elias Canetti

Of all of Napoleon's murders, the greatest and the most dreadful was of my father. — Elias Canetti

In five minutes the earth would be a desert, and you cling to books. — Elias Canetti

One has a prejudice wherever one fears a transformation. — Elias Canetti

A head full of stars, just not in constellation yet. — Elias Canetti

People love as self-recognition what they hate as an accusation. — Elias Canetti

Learning is the art of ignoring. — Elias Canetti

Relearn astonishment. — Elias Canetti

You have but to know an object by its proper name for it to lose its dangerous magic. — Elias Canetti

Speak as though it were the last sentence allowed you. — Elias Canetti

Whenever you observe an animal closely, you feel as if a human being sitting inside were making fun of you. — Elias Canetti

Someone who always has to lie discovers that every one of his lies is true. — Elias Canetti

He who is obsessed by death is made guilty by it. — Elias Canetti

Beauty always has something remote. — Elias Canetti

When you write down your life, every page should contain something no one has ever heard about. — Elias Canetti

The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else. — Elias Canetti

In eternity everything is just beginning. — Elias Canetti

There is no doubt: the study of man is just beginning, at the same time that his end is in sight. — Elias Canetti

It doesn't matter how new an idea is: what matters is how new it becomes. — Elias Canetti

It is important what a man still plans at the end. It shows the measure of injustice in his death. — Elias Canetti

Whether or not God is dead: it is impossible to keep silent about him who was there for so long. — Elias Canetti

A person often falls very ill in order to become someone else and then returns to health much disappointed. — Elias Canetti

Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open arms into their misfortune? — Elias Canetti

The first effect of adjusting to other people is that one becomes boring. — Elias Canetti

The great writers of aphorisms read as if they had all known each other well. — Elias Canetti

Most religions do not make men better, only warier. — Elias Canetti

There can be no Creator, simply because his grief at the fate of his creation would be inconceivable and unendurable. — Elias Canetti

One should not confuse the craving for life with endorsement of it. — Elias Canetti

All things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams. — Elias Canetti

Everything one records contains a grain of hope, no matter how deeply it may come from despair. — Elias Canetti

The act of naming is the great and solemn consolation of mankind — Elias Canetti

There emanates from superlatives a destructive force. — Elias Canetti