Best 23 quotes of Joseph Roth on MyQuotes

A lot of truths about the living world are recorded in bad books; they are just badly written about.

Although the noise of the chattering clientele is much more significant than the topics of their chatter, it does finally constitute that type of social and indistinct expression that we refer to as rhubarb. The very particular volume in which people tell each other their news seems to generate all by itself that acoustic chiaroscuro, a sounding murk, in which every communication seems to lose its edges, truth projects the shadow of a lie, and a statement seems to resemble its opposite.

A moving shadow means more to us than a body at rest. We are no longer taken in by a fixed grin. We know that only death has a rictus.

I believe that my observations have always led me to find that the so-called realist moves about the world with a closed mind, ringed as it were with concrete and cement, and that the so-called romantic is like an unfenced garden in and out of which truth can wander at will.

That is originally why the concept evolved to include accessories. We found that furniture sells better when you show it with accessories.

The escalator seems to me to typify this: It leads us up, by climbing on our behalf. Yes, it doesn't even climb, it flies. Each step carries its shopper aloft, as though afraid he might change his mind. It takes us up to merchandise we might not have bothered to climb an ordinary flight of steps for.

An indescribable sadness emanated from the white splendour of the staircase and balustrade; the blood-red, now almost black splendour of the carpets. The huge palms in their huge pots looked like they had recently arrived from the cemetery. Their dark green leaves also looked blackish, like wizened, perished weapons from olden days.

Anyone called upon to view misery will view criminality differently. All state officials should be required to spend a month serving in a homeless shelter to learn love.

But the sound of despair is never pleasant; it sounds suspiciously like lying.

Count Chojnicki was curious. No other passion than curiosity sent him out into the world, drew him to the tables of the great gaming halls, sequestered him behind the walls of his old hunting pavilion, sat him down on the parliamentarians' benches, determined that he would return home every spring, compelled him to throw his regular parties, and prevented him from cutting his own throat. It was curiosity that kept him alive.

Every year, on the Emperor's birthday, he makes a resolution to begin a new life and not get into debt. And so he gets drunk. And comes home late at night, stands in the kitchen with drawn sword, and commands an entire regiment. The pots are platoons, the teacups are units, the plates are companies. Simon Demant is a colonel, a colonel in the service of Franz Joseph I.

Gradually too, Trotta's disappointment was replaced by a sweet melancholy. He made a pact with his sadness. Everything in the world was as sad as it could be, and at the very heart of this wretched world was the Lieutenant. It was for him that the frogs were bruiting so piteously tonight, and the pain-filled crickets were waiting on his behalf. It was for him that the spring night was filled with such a sweet and easy sadness, for him that the stars were positioned so unattainably high in the sky, and it was to him alone that their light blinked so longingly and vainly. The unending pain of the world fitted itself to Trotta's hurt.

He took the Captain as he was, and was fond of him, with his cheery heartlessness, his incapacity to think beyond a couple of thoughts, for which his skull was far too roomy, his insignificant love affairs and childish infatuations, and the pointless and unconnected remarks that came out of his mouth, seemingly at random. He was a mediocre officer, who didn't care about his comrades, his men, his career.

I am not a man of my time. In fact I find it hard not to declare myself its enemy. Not, as I often remark, that I fail to understand it. My comment is merely a pious one. Because I am easy-going I prefer not to be aggressive or hostile and therefore I say that I do not understand those matters which I ought to say I hate or despise. I have sharp hears but I pretend to be hard of hearing, finding as I do that is more elegant to feign this handicap than to admit that I have heard some vulgar sound

I am thankful once again to strip off an old life, as I so often have during these years. I look back upon a soldier, a murderer, a man almost murdered, a man resurrected, a prisoner, a wanderer.

I might be capable of making figures that have heart, conscience, passion, emotion and decency. But there's no call for that at all in the world. People are only interested in monsters and freaks, so I give them their monsters. Monsters are what they want!

In no time, the platoon were on their feet in front of him, formed up into two ranks, and it struck him suddenly, and probably for the first time in his military career, that these men with their drilled precision were dead parts of dead machines that didn't produce anything.

Morning birdsong filled the room. For all his high opinion of birds, privileged among God's creatures, still, deep in his heart, the Emperor did not trust them, just as he did not trust artists.

On Sundays the world is as bright and empty as a balloon.

Our grandfathers didn't leave us much strength, not enough strength to live with, but just about enough to die a meaningless death. Ach!

So they bring our poor Andreas into the vestry, and unfortunately he's no longer capable of speech, all he can do is reach for the left inside pocket of his jacket where he has the money he owes the little creditress, and he says: 'Miss Thérèse!' - and he sighs once, and he dies. May God grant us all, all of us drinkers, such a good and easy death!

Taittinger pondered, but he was well aware that no amount of pondering had yet helped him to a sensible conclusion.

They talk about prohibition in America. What can one do in a country such as that?    'What does one do in America when one is sad - without alcohol?' asks Zwonimir.