Rilke Writing Quotes & Sayings

Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. — Rainer Maria Rilke

So don't be frightened, dear friend, if a sadness confronts you larger than any you have ever known, casting its shadow over all you do. You must think that something is happening within you, and remember that life has not forgotten you; it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why would you want to exclude from your life any uneasiness, any pain, any depression, since you don't know what work they are accomplishing within you? — Rainer Maria Rilke

Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other
people passes by, far in the distance. — Rainer Maria Rilke

It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart. — Rainer Maria Rilke

If one think he can live without writing, perhaps he should not write at all. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Think of a ball of steel as large as the world, and a fly alighting on it once every million years. When the ball of steel is rubbed away by the friction, eternity will not even have begun. — David Lodge

Read the lines as if they were unknown to you, and you will feel in your inmost self how very much they are yours. — Rainer Maria Rilke

This, above all, ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: must I write? Delve deep into yourself. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this question witha strong and simple 'I must' then build your lfie according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write [create]? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. — Rainer Maria Rilke

If you ask me, we could do with a little less motivation. - The people who are causing all the trouble seem highly motivated to me. - Serial killers, stock swindlers, drug dealers, Christian Republicans. — George Carlin

Rilke said that art can come only out of inner necessity. I write because I must. Or because I cannot not write. — Aleksandar Hemon

Extremes are vicious, and proceed from men; compensation is just, and proceeds from God. — Jean De La Bruyere

Is Abelone beautiful? I asked myself, surprised. Then I left home to go to the Academy for Young Noblemen; it was the start of a distasteful and harmful period. But there at Soro whenever I separated myself from the others and they let me stand in peace at the window I would look out in amongst the trees; and in such moments and at night the certainty grew in me that Abelone was beautiful. And I started writing her all those letters, lengthy ones and short, many of them secret letters in which I thought I was writing about Ulsgaard and about my present unhappiness . But, as I see it now, they may well have been love letters. — Rainer Maria Rilke

As Borges has taught us, all the books in the library are contemporary. Great poems are like granaries: they are always ready to enlarge their store. — William H Gass

There is only one way: Go within. Search for the cause, find the impetus that bids you write. Put it to this test: Does it stretch out its roots in the deepest place of your heart? Can you avow that you would die if you were forbidden to write? Above all, in the most silent hour of your night, ask yourself this: Must I write? Dig deep into yourself for a true answer. And if it should ring its assent, if you can confidently meet this serious question with a simple, "I must," then build your life upon it. It has become your necessity. Your life, in even the most mundane and least significant hour, must become a sign, a testimony to this urge. — Rainer Maria Rilke

If, when you wake up in the morning, you can think of nothing but writing ... then you are a writer. — Rainer Maria Rilke

In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write? — Rainer Maria Rilke

Most events are inexpressible, and take place in a sphere that no word has ever entered. Most inexpressible of all are works of art, existences full of secrets whose life continues alongside ours, while ours is transitory. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Nobody can advise and help you, nobody. There is only one single means. Go inside yourself. Discover the motive that bids you write; examine whether it sends its roots down to the deepest places of your heart, confess to yourself whether you would have to die if writing were denied you. — Rainer Maria Rilke

way through the crowd that had gathered on — Hazel Gaynor

To write rhythmic prose one must go deep into oneself and find the anonymous and multiple rhythm of the blood. Prose needs to be built like a cathedral. There, one is truly without a name, without ambition, without help; on scaffoldings, alone with one's consciousness. — Rainer Maria Rilke