Home / Authors / Elfriede Jelinek

Elfriede Jelinek

Elfriede Jelinek Quotes

Playwright

Elfriede Jelinek is a renowned playwright, born on October 20, 1946. Her works are known for their profound social criticism and exploration of female experiences. Jelinek has received international recognition for her work, including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016.

Filter quotes by topic

All Art Fine Firsts People Writing Artist Children Ease Feelings Greater

Famous Elfriede Jelinek Quotes

“No art can possibly comfort HER then, even though art is credited with so many things, especially an ability to offer solace. Sometimes, of course, art creates the suffering in the first place.”

Art Suffering Solace

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“Her body is one big refrigerator, where Art is well stored.”

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“Many young people are still driven to art, as in olden times. Most of them are driven by their parents, who know nothing about art—only that it exists.”

Inspirational Attitude

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“I, however, have really never been anywhere yet, not because some sins or other could wrap themselves around me there, but because I'd rather sin at home, where God even announces the weather to me in advance on TV, slowly, so that I can write it down, in case it's worth the proper guilt. Sinning is enough, there's no need for surprises as well.”

Book:Greed

Source: Greed

“The Ph.D is one of the chosen who know that some things can never be fathomed, no matter how hard you try. What good are explanations? There is no possibility of explaining how such a work [Mozart's Requiem, in the instance] could ever have come into being. (The same holds true for certain poems, which should not be analyzed either.)”

Poetry Chosen Analysis Poems Ph D

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“There is too much too much too much of everything. We have enough too. More than enough. We've had enough.”

Book:Greed

Source: Greed

“the ignorant majority, which does however possess one thing in abundance: It is raring for a fight.”

Ignorant Majority

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“Women age early, and their mistake is not knowing where to hide all the time that lies behind them so that no one sees it. What are they to do, devour it like the umbilical cords of their children? Hell and damnation!”

Children Age Lying Women Behinds Mistake Hell Knowing Not Knowing Damnation Cords Umbilical Cord

Book:Lust

Source: Lust

“Work restores humankind and all its attributes to the savage animal condition that was its original intended state.”

States Work Animal Conditions Originals Attributes Humankind Savages

Book:Lust

Source: Lust

“Very few women wait for Mr. Right. Most women take the first and worst Mr. Wrong.”

Firsts Waiting Worst Mr Right

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“It is not enough ... simply to surrender oneself brainlessly to love, when it knocks at the door, one must also calculate because of later life, which does sometimes follow.”

Doe Sometimes Enough Doors Oneself Surrender

Book:Women as Lovers

Source: Women as Lovers

“Only he who loves and is loved for his own sake can be happy, and what produces that happiness is not so much the sense of sexual communion as of two people being together ... the sexual act viewed as a whole probably affords less happiness than a totally ordinary kiss or often indeed one simple word from the one you love.”

People Two Whole Together Simple Produce Kissing Ordinary Sake Communion One You Love Being Together Simple Words

Author:Elfriede Jelinek

“Trust is fine, but control is better.”

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“Love points the way. Desire is its ignorant advisor.”

Way Desire Ignorant Advisors

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“Seek and you shall find the repulsive things you secretly hope to find.”

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“Characters on stage should be flat, like clothes in a fashion show: what you get should be no more than what you see. Psychological realism is repulsive, because it allows us to escape unpalatable reality by taking shelter in the “luxuriousness” of personality, losing ourselves in the depth of individual character. The writer's task is to block this manoeuvre, to chase us off to a point from which we can view the horror with a dispassionate eye.”

“After all, when you take a walk you're after solitude, and if the solitude won't come to you, you must go to it.”

Ifs Walks Solitude

Book:Wonderful, Wonderful Times

Source: Wonderful, Wonderful Times

“Literature that keeps employing new linguistic and formal modes of expression to draft a panorama of society as a whole while at the same time exposing it, tearing the masks from its face - for me that would be deserving of an award.”

Whole Would Be Faces Literature Expression Mask Awards Formal Deserving Exposing Linguistics Employing Panorama Deserving It

Author:Elfriede Jelinek

“He lies like a book. And he reads a lot of books.”

Book:Wonderful, Wonderful Times

Source: Wonderful, Wonderful Times

“Vice is basically the love of failure.”

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“Every day, a piece of music, a short story, or a poem dies because its existence is no longer justified in our time. And things that were once considered immortal have become mortal again, no one knows them anymore. Even though they deserve to survive.”

Knows Stories Dies Existence Pieces Deserve Mortals Our Time Immortal Short Story Justified

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“you have often seen in the cinema, erich, haven't you, that between extraordinary people extraordinary things like for example extraordinary love can arise. so we only have to be extraordinary and see what happens.”

People Happens Havens Example Extraordinary Arise Cinema Extraordinary Things Extraordinary Love

Book:Women as Lovers

Source: Women as Lovers

“Anna despises two classes of people: first, those who own their own homes and have cars and families, and second, everybody else. Constantly she is on the verge of exploding. With rage. A pool of pure red. The pool is filled with speechlessness that talks away at her nonstop.”

People Firsts Two Home Class Car Pure Red Filled Rage Pool Despise Verge Anna Exploding

Book:Wonderful, Wonderful Times

Source: Wonderful, Wonderful Times

“The first thing a proprietor learns, and painfully at that, is: Trust is fine, but control is better.”

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“As is said about most writers: on the one hand all I ever did from when I was a child was read, and I was a loner, which was furthered by my parents and my upbringing.”

Children Said Hands Parent Upbringing Loner

Author:Elfriede Jelinek

“Art and order, the relatives that refuse to relate.”

Art Order Refuse Relate

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“Sunday, the day for the language of leisure.”

Language Sunday Leisure

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“Strictly speaking, there are no holidays for art; art pursues you everywhere, and that's just fine with the artist.”

Art Artist Fine Pursue Holiday

Book:The Piano Teacher

Source: The Piano Teacher

“I do not fight against men, but against the system that is sexist.”

Men Fighting Sexist

Author:Elfriede Jelinek

“It could draw from a greater reservoir of freedom. The irony could develop an even greater ease.”

Greater Draws Ease Irony Reservoirs

Author:Elfriede Jelinek

“My plays are made up of long monologues, which is similar to prose working with the language”

Long Made Play Language Prose Monologues

Author:Elfriede Jelinek

“I think isolation is one of the greatest problems, an ever-growing obstacle to political solidarity.”

Thinking Problem Political Growing Obstacles Isolation Solidarity

Author:Elfriede Jelinek

“I have the feeling it will influence my future writing to the extent that without any material worries I could develop a greater ease, even lightheartedness, in my writing”

Writing Feelings Worry Greater Influence Materials Ease My Future Lightheartedness

Author:Elfriede Jelinek

“I cannot stand public attention, I just can't. Of course, if I may I might write something instead”

Ifs Writing May Might Courses Attention

Author:Elfriede Jelinek

“Eroding solidarity paradoxically makes a society more susceptible to the construction of substitute collectives and fascisms of all kinds.”

Kind All Kinds Collectives Substitutes Fascism Construction Solidarity Susceptible

Author:Elfriede Jelinek

“I do not want to have the feeling of writing "for eternity," so to speak.”

Want Writing Feelings Speak Eternity

Author:Elfriede Jelinek

About the Author

Born: October 20, 1946
Known for: Playwright
Quotes: 36

Related Topics

Art Fine Firsts People Writing Artist Children Ease Feelings Greater

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

The Piano TeacherRelated source material

Wonderful, Wonderful TimesRelated source material

GreedRelated source material

LustRelated source material

Women as LoversRelated source material

Similar Authors

Pattiann RogersBrowse related quotes
Joia MukherjeeBrowse related quotes
Joyce Carol OatesBrowse related quotes
Ferdinand de SaussureBrowse related quotes
Theodor StormBrowse related quotes
William ZinsserBrowse related quotes
Katie KitamuraBrowse related quotes
Vicente AleixandreBrowse related quotes
Natalie GoldbergBrowse related quotes
Earl LovelaceBrowse related quotes