9 Quotes & Sayings By Joseph Roth

Joseph Roth was born in Vienna in 1894. He is one of the most celebrated novelists of the twentieth century. He served in the Austrian army during World War I, where he survived four concentration camps. His most famous novel, The Radetzky March, was published in 1934 Read more

After Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Roth became a refugee in Paris and later moved to London. He spent the last twenty years of his life in the United States, where he died in 1990.

1
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. Joseph Roth
2
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. Joseph Roth
3
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. Joseph Roth
4
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! Joseph Roth
5
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 . Joseph Roth
6
I am alone. My heart beats only for myself. The strikers mean nothing to me. I have nothing in common with the mob, nor with individuals. I am a cold person. In the war I did not feel I was part of my company. We all lay in the same mud and waited for the same death. But I could think only about my own life and death. I would step over corpses and it oftened saddened me that I could feel no pain. Joseph Roth
7
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. Joseph Roth
8
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. Joseph Roth