Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Quote by Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Work

Il libro degli amici

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Austrian novelist, poet, playwright, and translator. Known for his elegant style and profound philosophical thinking. His notable works include 'The Death of Rodin' and 'Federico García Lorca'. more

You May Also Like

“Mestre. Say the word without hissing the conurbated villain, and pitying its citizens. As quickly as they can, two million tourists pass through, or by, Mestre each year, and each one will be struck by the same thought as they wonder at the aesthetic opposition that it represents. Mestre is an ugly town but ugly only in the same way that Michael Jackson might be desccribed as eccentric or a Tabasco Vindaloo flambéed in rocket fuel might be described as warm. Mestre is almost excremental in its hideousness: a fetid, fly-blown, festering, industrial urbanization, scarred with varicose motorways, flyovers, rusting railway sidings and the rubbish of a billion holidaymakers gradually burning, spewing thick black clouds into the Mediterranean sky. A town with apparently no centre, a utilitarian ever-expandable wasteland adapted to house the displaced poor, the shorebound, outpriced, domicile-deprived exiles from its neighbouring city. For, just beyond the condom- and polystyrene-washed, black-stained, mud shores of Marghera, Mestre's very own oil refinery, less than a mile away across the waters of the lagoon in full sight of its own dispossessed citizens, is the Jewel of Adriatic. Close enough for all to feel the magnetism, there stands the most beautiful icon of Renaissance glory and, like so much that can attract tourism, a place too lovely to be left in the hands of its natives, the Serenissima itself, Venice.”

Making LoveVeniceMestreMarius BrillSerenissima
Book:Making Love: A Conspiracy of the Heart
Create image

“Memory is a patient sculptor. It chisels away the rough edges and refines the scenes you carry. A childhood street that once felt endless becomes shorter in recollection, but more idyllic. ... The mind softens the harshness and highlights the tenderness. It leaves you with impressions more than exact details: the smell of jasmine in the evening, the sound of rain on an old roof, the feeling of safety in a friend’s kitchen.”

SelfPastTimeEmotionPsychologyPerceptionReflectionMemoryNostalgiaTenderness
Author:Ajmal, from the book "Borders of the Inner World"
Create image