7 Quotes & Sayings By Frigyes Karinthy

Frigyes Karinthy (Hungarian: Fülöp Csaba Karinthy) (1893 - 1958), was a Hungarian playwright, who wrote more than 30 plays. He is best known for his comedy of manners, which often satirizes the contrast between traditional ways of thought and modern ideas. His work is also noted for its use of an ironic tone, which was highly influential in post-World War II Hungarian literature. A play based on his work, Művészetek a városban (Artists in a City) won the 1956 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Humor is the whole truth.
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Humor is the whole truth. Frigyes Karinthy
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My head ached. I was thinking of the pain, and wondering how it was possible for physical agony to be so intense. I had never imagined that such a torture could be endured. Yet here was I, both conscious and able to think clearly. And not only to think, but to observe the process and make calculations about it. The steel circle round my skull was closing in with faint cracking noises. How much farther could it shrink? I counted the cracking sounds. Since I took the triple dose of pain-killer, there had been two more. …I took out my watch and laid it on the table.“ Give me morphia, ” I said in a calm, hostile, icy tone.“ You mustn’t take morphia! You know perfectly well. The very idea! And what are you doing with that watch?”“ You will give me morphia within three minutes.” They looked me uneasily up and down. No one moved. Three minutes went by. Then ten more. I slipped the watch calmly into my pocket and rose unsteadily to my feet.“ Then take me to the Fiakker Bar. They say it’s a good show, and to-night I want to enjoy myself.” The others jumped up with a feeling of relief. I never confessed the secret to anyone, either then or afterwards. I had made up my mind at the end of those three minutes – for the first and last time in my life – that if my headache had not stopped within the next ten I should throw myself under the nearest tram. It never came out whether I should have kept to my resolve, for the pain left with the suddenness of lighting. Frigyes Karinthy
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I set free the phantoms of my imagination. Frigyes Karinthy
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Is it possible that power can conquer matter, that the soul makes a mightier truth than the body, that life has a meaning that survives life itself, that good survives evil as life survives death, that God, after all, is more powerful than the Devil? Frigyes Karinthy
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Everything returns and renews itself. The difference now is that the rate of these returns has increased, in both space and time, in an unheard-of fashion. Now my thoughts can circle the globe in minutes. Entire passages of world history are played out in a couple of years. Frigyes Karinthy
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Now we live in fairyland. The only lightly disappointing thing about this land is that it is smaller than the real world has ever been. Frigyes Karinthy