Elias Canetti - Life Quotes

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

Elias Canetti
I was never drawn to experiment with language; I take note of such experiments, but avoid them in my own writing. The reason is that the substance of life claims me completely. To indulge in linguistic experiments is to ignore the greater part of this substance, leaving all but a tiny portion untouched and unused, as if a musician were to ceaselessly play an instrument with his little finger only.

Elias Canetti
The story of your youth must not turn into a catalog of what became important in your later life. It must also contain the dissipation, the failure, and the waste.

Elias Canetti
Life experience does not amount to very much and could be learned from novels alone, e. g., from Balzac, without any help from life.

Elias Canetti
Invention's quality of surprise, its advantage, can also be arbitrary. Later, in the context of our own lives, this arbitrariness is no longer possible. We must stay with that which our best understanding tells is is the truth. This truth is what matters, and it is on its account that we set down our life in writing.

Elias Canetti
Almost Kien was tempted to believe in happiness, that contemptible life-goal of illiterates. If it came of itself, without being hunted for, if you did not hold it fast by force and treated it with a certain condescension, it was permissible to endure its presence for a few days

Elias Canetti