Ingeborg Bachmann Quotes & Sayings

I can no longer see a path in any path. — Ingeborg Bachmann

I am a dead man who wanders
registered nowhere — Ingeborg Bachmann

Once one has survived something then survival itself interferes with understanding, and you don't even know which lives came before and which is your life of today, you even mix up your own lives. — Ingeborg Bachmann

Ivan and I: the world converging.
Malina and I, since we are one: the world diverging. — Ingeborg Bachmann

I think of you, of the lake, of the city, of the burning days on the shore, in the sand, of the shadowy paths, of the musical breath of the air. The water is quiet, blue, I'd like to lie in a boat in the reeds, I don't want to speak, everything around me will tell you what I'm sensing. — Ingeborg Bachmann

The arrogance to insist on her own unhappiness, her own loneliness, had always been in her, but only now did it venture to emerge; it blossomed, ran wild, smothered her. She was unredeemable and nobody should have the effrontery to redeem her ... — Ingeborg Bachmann

I have only one life story to tell, but Gerda must have several, for although by and large I know her past and know enough people who have known her from a child, when she talks about herself there are an infinite number of deviations, indeed not even deviations, because there is no line from which she could deviate, there are simply a large number of versions and interpretations of her life. When she is in a good mood and becomes talkative, she no sooner thinks of a detail than her life story takes a different turn. — Ingeborg Bachmann

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. — Ingeborg Bachmann

...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. — Ingeborg Bachmann

speak across borders
even if borders pass through every word. — Ingeborg Bachmann

I have lived in Ivan and die in Malina. — Ingeborg Bachmann

The woman was finally done, and Beatrix reached for a magazine. There were always German magazines lying around here, Vogue was extremely rare; who wanted to read German magazines, anyway? Twin Murders in Stuttgart. Certainly an awful place, it even sounded like murder. Sex in Germany. That was probably even worse. — Ingeborg Bachmann

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

He would like to burrow under the earth like a bulb, like a root, to where it is still warm. To hibernate with his thoughts and feelings. To remain silent with a shrivelling mouth. He wishes that all the statements, insults, promises he has uttered would become invalid, forgotten by everyone and he himself forgotten too.
But no sooner is he secured in the silence, no sooner does he fancy that he has wrapped himself up like a chrysalis, than he is no longer right. A wet, cold wind blows his absence of expectations around the corner, over a flower-stall filled with evergreens and flowers for the dead. And suddenly he is holding in his hands the snowdrops that he didn't want to buy
he who wanted to go empty-handed! The bells of the snowdrops begin to ring wildly and soundlessly, and he goes to where his ruin awaits him. Filled with expectation as never before, with the expectation and the desire for salvation accumulated through all the years. — Ingeborg Bachmann

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. — Ingeborg Bachmann

But only the witnesses feel fear, a maddening fear, for what they could bring to light is even larger than the sun that is measured and gauged and set down down in a study. — Ingeborg Bachmann

I am writing with my burnt hand about the nature of fire. — Ingeborg Bachmann

But Beatrix knew very well that there were no jobs, not even the most pitiful office routine - she wasn't even qualified for that - and that no one would allow her to sleep until late in the afternoon because these ill-advised people all around her let themselves be squeezed into schedules; that she would never work, least of all learn a trade, because she had no ambition whatsoever to earn a single shilling, become self-supporting and spend eight hours a day with people who smelled bad. — Ingeborg Bachmann

A single tear forms, just in the corner of one eye, but it doesn't roll down my cheek; it merely crystallizes in the cold air, it grows and grows into a second giant globe that doesn't want to orbit with the world - it breaks off from the planet and plunges into infinity. — Ingeborg Bachmann

Hello! It could only have been Andre, but she replaced the receiver instantly, reaching for the tiny, crumpled scrap of paper and tucking it under her pillow as she dozed off again, struck by another dream at the edge of sleep, and clutching her head and her heart because she didn't know where all the blood was coming from. Nonetheless she kept repeating: It's nothing, it's nothing, nothing else can happen to me now. Something might happen to me, but nothing has to happen. — Ingeborg Bachmann

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. — Ingeborg Bachmann

I don't take drugs, I take books. — Ingeborg Bachmann

My father is beating Melanie, then, because a large dog begins to bark in warning, he beats this dog who competely submits to his thrashing. In the same way my mother and I also allowed ourselves to be thrashed. I know that the dog is my mother, absolute submission. I ask my father why he's beating Melanie as well, and he says he won't stand for such questions, she doesn't mean anything to him, it's shameless of me to even ask about her, he keeps repeating that Melanie doesn't mean anything to him, he only needs her for a few more weeks, for a little refreshment, I have to understand that. — Ingeborg Bachmann

I'll worship animals in the night, I'll lay violent hands on the holiest icons, I'll clutch at all lies, I'll grow bestial in my dreams and will allow myself to be slaughtered like a beast. — Ingeborg Bachmann

My share, it should be lost. — Ingeborg Bachmann

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

No new world without a new language. — Ingeborg Bachmann

Tell me, love, what I can't explain:
Should I spend this short, horrid time
with thoughts only, and alone
know no love and give none?
Must one think? Won't he be missed? — Ingeborg Bachmann

Our field is the sky,
tilled by the sweat of motors,
in the face of night,
at the risk of our dreams
... . ... ... ... ...
Who lived there? Whose hands were pure?
Who glowed in the night,
A ghost to other ghosts?
Who lives down below? Who cries ... .
Who has lost the key to their house?
Who can't find their bed, who is sleeping
on the steps of the stairs? When morning comes, who will
dare interpret the silvery trace: look above me ... When the
water pushes the watermill wheel once again,
who will dare remember the night? — Ingeborg Bachmann

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. — Ingeborg Bachmann

What actually is possible, however, is transformation. And the transformative effect that emanates from new works leads us to new perception, to a new feeling, new consciousness — Ingeborg Bachmann

And I don't believe in this materialism, in this consumer society, in this capitalism, in this outrageous horror that happens / takes place here ... . I really do believe in something, and I call it "a day will come." And one day it will come. Well, probably it won't come, since they've always destroyed it for us ... . It won't come, and I believe in it anyway. Because if I can't believe in it anymore then I can't write anymore either. — Ingeborg Bachmann

My favorite, how did you put it now? Landscapes, animals, plants? Favorite what? Books, music, architecture, painting? I don't have any favorite animals, no favorite mosquitoes, favorite beetles, favorite worms, even with the best will in the world I cannot tell you which birds or fish or predators I prefer, it would also be difficult for me to have to choose much more generally. — Ingeborg Bachmann

For the facts that make up the world need the non-factual as a vantage point from which to be perceived. — Ingeborg Bachmann

There was only one hope she didn't and wouldn't allow herself to hold on to: that if, in almost thirty years, she hadn't found a man, not a single one, who was exclusively significant for her, who had become inevitable to her, someone who was strong and brought her the mystery she had been waiting for, not a single one who was really a man and not an eccentric, a weakling or one of the needy the world was full of - then the man simply didn't exist, and as long as this New Man did not exist, one could only be friendly and kind to one another, for a while. There was nothing more to make of it, and it would be best if women and men kept their distance and had nothing to do with each other until both had found their way out of the tangle and confusion, the discrepancy inherent in all relationships. — Ingeborg Bachmann

Nonetheless even in capitulation there is still hope, and this hope of human beings never ends, will never end. — Ingeborg Bachmann

You wouldn't believe it, but apart from a few drunks, a few sex murderers and other men who get into the papers where they are designated as criminals of passion, no normal man with normal drives has the obvious idea that a normal woman would like to be quite normally raped. Part of it is that men aren't normal, but people are incapable of even imagining all the ramifications of the male disease, so accustomed have they become to men's mistakes in judgment and their phenomenal lack of instinct. — Ingeborg Bachmann

One could only be nice to each other for a while. That was the best one could do. Men and women should best keep at a safe distance, having nothing to do with each other until both had found their way out of their misunderstanding, their confusion or the disruption of all relationships. One day, something else might come. But only then. Something strong. Something mysterious. Something greater to which everyone could submit. — Ingeborg Bachmann

I myself am a person who has never resigned myself, who is absolutely never resigned, who can't imagine it at all. I simply observe, and I observe in so many people, and often very quickly, a resignation that terrifies me, that's it. — Ingeborg Bachmann

All of this is such a long and dark and untellable story (untellable as all stories are). Meanwhile, one can only hold onto what is tangible and look at one's fingers, try to look into someone's eyes, and write down the sentences that are spoken, so that something is said by which one can begin to glimpse what really happened. — Ingeborg Bachmann

With the aid of a minute correction - that of the dispersing lens - in a gold frame perched on her nose, Miranda can see into hell. — Ingeborg Bachmann

Miranda doesn't dream, she simply rests. When Miranda's eyes are at ease, her mind is at peace. — Ingeborg Bachmann

There are people who think that Malina and I are married. We never considered that we might be married, that such a possibility could exist, nor even the idea that other people might think that we were married. For the longest time it never crossed our minds that, like other people, we appear as man and wife wherever we go. This was a complete surprise for us, but we had no idea what to make of it. We laughed a lot. — Ingeborg Bachmann

She wondered all the same how much they really had to say to one another, given that they had only this city in common and a similar way of talking, the same intonation, perhaps she'd just wanted to believe after that third whiskey on the roof garden at the Hilton that he would give her back something she'd lost, a missing taste, an intonation gone flat, that ghostly feeling of home, though she was no longer at home anywhere. — Ingeborg Bachmann

Nonetheless, like all women, I naturally always had men on my mind, for reasons mentioned earlier, and I'm sure that in turn the men gave very little thought to me, only after finishing work, or maybe on a day off ... However, most men usually make women unhappy, and there's no reciprocity, as our misfortune is natural, inevitable, stemming as it does from the disease of men, for whose sake women have to bear so much in mind, continually modifying what they have just learned
for, as a rule, if you have to constantly brood about somebody, and create feelings for him, then you will be unhappy. — Ingeborg Bachmann