Marlen Haushofer Quotes & Sayings

I can allow myself to write the truth; all the people for whom I have lied throughout my life are dead. — Marlen Haushofer

Suddenly I had a flash of insight: I am a monster, I realized, a monster that wants to stalk through the woods, free and alone, and cannot even bear so much as the touch of a branch on its skin. — Marlen Haushofer

Imagination makes people oversensitive,vulnerable and exposed. Perhaps it's a form of degeneracy. I have never held the shortcomings of the unimaginative against them. Sometimes I've even envied them: they have an easier and more pleasant life than everyone else. — Marlen Haushofer

Maybe I'm afraid that if I could do otherwise I would gradually cease to be a human being, and would soon be creeping about, dirty and stinking, emitting incomprehensible noises. Not that I'm afraid of becoming an animal. That wouldn't be too bad, but a human being can never become just an animal; he plunges beyond, into the abyss. — Marlen Haushofer

The barriers between animal and human come down very easily. We belong to a single great family, and if we are lonely and unhappy we gladly accept the friendship of our distant relations. — Marlen Haushofer

I knew I couldn't go on like this, but I'd never been capable of simply nipping an anxiety in the bud. I always had to wait until it was ripe and mature and fell from me. — Marlen Haushofer

External freedom has probably never existed, but neither have I ever known anyone who knew inner freedom. — Marlen Haushofer

But if time exists only in my head, and I'm the last human being, it will end with my death. The thought cheers me. I may be in a position to murder time. The big net will tear and fall, with its sad contents, into oblivion. I'm owed some gratitude, but no one after my death will know I murdered time. Really these thoughts are quite meaningless. Things happen, and, like millions of people before me, I look for meaning in them, because my vanity will not allow me to admit that the whole meaning of an event lies in the event itself. — Marlen Haushofer