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The Wall

Book by Marlen Haushofer · 12 quotes · Meaning, Appearance, Beauty

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The Wall Quotes

“Goodbye, Greg.” She didn’t see his face, for he was turned away from her, and so she was unaware of the silent tears that streamed down his granite-hard face, of the lips that were drawn back tight over teeth clenched with pain. She hadn’t seen his fists, drawn down by his sides, and didn’t know that his knuckles were white and the fingers bloodless from the tension of his tight grip. She was in the hall after saying goodbye, and the words he mouthed were a bare thread of sound anyway, so she wasn’t to know that he whispered hopelessly, “Don’t go. Sara, don’t go. Sara!” But he didn’t call after her, and she trudged upstairs with a heavy heart. -Greg & Sara”

LoveHeartbreakLongingSeparationFarewell
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“Home: it didn’t just seem as if home was a long way away, it actually felt as if the whole concept of home was strange, a thing you used to believe in, an ideology you’d once been passionate about but had now abandoned. Home: the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Somebody had said that. But once you had spent time on the Wall, you stop believing in the idea that anybody, ever, has no choice but to take you in. Nobody has to take you in. They can choose to, or not. (p. 54)”

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“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.”

SelfTimeMeaning
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“Ik denk dat de tijd volkomen stilstaat en dat ik me erin beweeg, soms langzaam en soms met razende snelheid. Ik zit aan de tafel en de tijd staat stil. Ik kan hem niet zien, niet ruiken en niet horen maar hij omringt me aan alle kanten. Zijn stilte en zijn onbeweeglijkheid zijn verschrikkelijk. Ik spring op, ren het huis uit en probeer hem te ontvluchten. Ik ga iets doen, de dingen eisen mijn aandacht op en ik vergeet de tijd. En dan, heel plotseling, is hij weer om me heen. Misschien sta ik voor het huis naar de kraaien te kijken en daar is hij weer, immaterieel en stil, en hij houdt ons vast, de wei, de kraaien en mij. Ik zal aan hem moeten wennen, aan zijn onverschilligheid en zijn alomtegenwoordigheid.”

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