Laszlo Krasznahorkai Quotes & Sayings

But let us imagine RIGHT NOW that we find out about a world where there are artists who paint without brushes, make music without instruments, and write without pen and paper. The very thought makes me happy. That this world could be ours, right here and now. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

There is an intense relationship between proximate objects, a much weaker one between objects further away, and as for the really distant ones there is none at all, and that is the nature of God. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

I no longer care if I die, said Korin, then, after a long silence, pointed to the nearby flooded quarry: Are those swans? — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

Quietly, continually, the rain fell and the inconsolable wind that died then was forever resurrected ruffled the still surfaces of puddles so lightly it failed to disturb the delicate dead skin that had covered them during the night so that instead of recovering the previous day's tired glitter they increasingly and remorselessly absorbed the light that swam slowly out of the east. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

Culture, then, only truly becomes culture when it is embodied in someone. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

For hours, hours that could not be measured in terms of minutes or centuries, he dragged this terrible imagine round with him and was wholly oblivious to everything he suffered and by now he could not tell what was stronger, the chains with which it bound him or his own agonized desperation as he clung to it. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

Bough of a tree to the rain ... he turns the phrase over in his mouth as if it were fine wine, trying to guess its vintage, realizing somewhat indifferently that it is beyond him. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

However apparently insignificant the event, whether it be the ring of tobacco ash surrounding the table, the direction from which the wild geese first appeared, or a series of seemingly meaningless human movements, he couldn't afford to take his eyes off it and must note it all down, since only by doing so could he hope not to vanish one day and fall a silent captive to the infernal arrangement whereby the world decomposes but is at the same time constantly in the process of self-construction. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

We have reached the end of one era, and now we don't know what is all around us. Because we're already in a new era, and it is very different from the old one. Science and the world of technology are both changing everything so quickly, even our bodies. So the original ancient culture was present here, but to no avail, at this point in history it has come to stop. It still has some effect, some kind of continuity, but it cannot analyse and reformulate things, it cannot impact things with absolute strength. The age to follow will be full of dangers. It will be full of difficulties. In all likelihood, it will not be a good future for mankind. It is even possible this new era will mean the end of mankind. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

Get it into your thick head that jokes are just like life. Things that begin badly, end badly. Everything's fine in the middle, it's the end you need to worry about. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

Catastrophe! Of course! Last judgement! Horseshit! It's you that are the catastrophe, you're the bloody last judgement, your feet don't even touch the ground, you bunch of sleepwalkers. I wish you were dead, the lot of you. Let's make a bet,' and here he shook Nadaban by the shoulders, 'that you don't even know what I'm talking about!! Because you don't talk, you "whisper" or "expostulate"; you don't walk down the street but "proceed feverishly"; you don't enter a place but "cross its threshold", you don't feel cold or hot, but "find yourselves shivering" or "feeling the sweat pour down you"! I haven't heard a straight word for hours, you can only mew and caterwaul; because if a hooligan throws a brick through your window you invoke the last judgement, because your brains are addled and filled up with steam, because if someone sticks your nose in shit all you do is sniff, stare and cry "sorcery! — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

I'm not interested to believe in something, but to understand the people who believe. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

Europeans believe that culture is something they can grasp and touch because, for them, culture is comprised of objects, or remnants of objects, and this object, this remnant, conceals within it the essence of the original. For the Chinese, the matter is completely different---for them, the essence of culture can only be preserved in spiritual form. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

It is not always necessary to search for the cause behind everything, because every cause is unfounded. A cause only looks like a cause from a certain viewpoint. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

When I am not reading Kafka I am thinking about Kafka. When I am not thinking about Kafka I miss thinking about him. Having missed thinking about him for a while, I take him out and read him again. That's how it works. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

Death, he felt, was only a kind of warning rather than a desperate and permanent end. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

It passes, but it does not pass away. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

Only the land remained, the silent order of the mountains, the ground covered in fallen dead leaves in the enormous space, a boundless expanse - disguising, concealing, hiding, covering all that lies below the burning earth. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

The light gave him hope but he was afraid of it too. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

The noise of the rain seemed to have grown a little fainter but then it pelted down again. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

What one ought to capture in beauty is that which is treacherous and irresistible ... — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

You have every cause for anxiety. we are on the threshold of a more searching, more honest, more open society. there are new times just around the corner — Laszlo Krasznahorkai