28 Quotes & Sayings By Robert Walser

I'd like to die listening to a piece of music. I imagine this as so easy, so natural, but naturally it's quite impossible. Notes stab too softly. The wounds they leave behind may smart, but they don't fester. Melancholy and pain trickle out instead of blood. When the notes cease, all is peaceful within me again. Robert Walser

Artists, as a rule, understand nothing about business, or, for some reason or other, they aren’t allowed to understand anything about it. Robert Walser

With the utmost love and attention the man who walks must study and observe every smallest living thing, be it a child, a dog, a fly, a butterfly, a sparrow, a worm, a flower, a man, a house, a tree, a hedge, a snail, a mouse, a cloud, a hill, a leaf, or no more than a poor discarded scrap of paper on which, perhaps, a dear good child at school has written his first clumsy letters. The highest and the lowest, the most serious and the most hilarious things are to him equally beloved, beautiful, and valuable. Robert Walser

How reprehensible it is when those blessed with commodities insist on ignoring the poor. Better to torment them, force them into indentured servitude, inflict compulsion and blows–this at least produces a connection, fury and a pounding heart, and these too constitute a form of relationship. But to cower in elegant homes behind golden garden gates, fearful lest the breath of warm humankind touch you, unable to indulge in extravagances for fear they might be glimpsed by the embittered oppressed, to oppress and yet lack the courage to show yourself as an oppressor, even to fear the ones you are oppressing, feeling ill at ease in your own wealth and begrudging others their ease, to resort to disagreeable weapons that require neither true audacity nor manly courage, to have money, but only money, without splendor: That’s what things look like in our cities at present . Robert Walser

I feel how little it concerns me, everything that’s called "the world, " and how grand and exciting what I privately call the world is to me. Robert Walser

I don't want a future, I want a present. To me this appears of greater value. You have a future only when you have no present, and when you have a present, you forget to even think about the future. Robert Walser

He doesn’t see his path clearly, but also doesn’t consider this absolutely necessary; he strikes out in some direction or other, and one thing leads to the next. All paths lead to lives of some sort, and that’s all he requires, for every life promises a great deal and is replete with possibilities enchantingly fulfilled. Robert Walser

My cheeks are red hot, my lip still trembles, because I sent my heartto speak; every word of itdelusional and awkward, an exuberance, an abrupt sound. That's how I spoke, oh, it stillshows on my hot cheeks I'm now carrying home. I look down at the snowand walk past many houses, past many hedges, many trees, the snow adorns hedge, tree and house. I walk on, staring downat the snow, on my cheeksnothing but red-hot memoryreminding me of my wild talk. . Robert Walser

After a spent day, Iwalked back in a fever. The whole way homethe sun touched my cheeks. The blissful evening glowspread across the meadowsand I called this lightthe blood I shed. My hot burning blood layconsoling the entire world. So I walked with pride-- Now that all was tilled. I didn't know what was happening, I leaned against a fence post, in my blood that coveredthe meadows near and far. Robert Walser

The soul of the world had opened and I fantasized that everything wicked, distressing and painful was on the point of vanishing...all notion of the future paled and the past dissolved. In the glowing present, I myself glowed. Robert Walser

Ah, I believe Schacht. Only too willingly; that’s to say, I think what he says is absolutely true, for the world is incomprehensibly crass, tyrannical, moody, and cruel to sickly and sensitive people. Well, Schacht will stay here for the time being. We laughed at him a bit, when he arrived, that can’t be helped either, Schacht is young and after all can’t be allowed to think there are special degrees, advantages, methods, and considerations for him. He has now had his first disappointment, and I’m convinced that he’ll have twenty disappointments, one after the other. Life with its savage laws is in any case for certain people a succession of discouragements and terrifying bad impressions. People like Schacht are born to feel and suffer a continuous sense of aversion. He would like to admit and welcome things, but he just can’t. Hardness and lack of compassion strike him with tenfold force, he just feels them more acutely. Poor Schacht. He’s a child and he should be able to revel in melodies and bed himself in kind, soft, carefree things. For him there should be secret splashings and birdsong. Pale and delicate evening clouds should waft him away in the kingdom of Ah, What’s Happening to Me? His hands are made for light gestures, not for work. Before him breezes should blow, and behind him sweet, friendly voices should be whispering. His eyes should be allowed to remain blissfully closed, and Schacht should be allowed to go quietly to sleep again, after being wakened in the morning in the warm, sensuous cushions. For him there is, at root, no proper activity, for every activity is for him, the way he is, improper, unnatural, and unsuitable. Compared with Schacht I’m the trueblue rawboned laborer. Ah, he’ll be crushed, and one day he’ll die in a hospital. or he’ll perish, ruined in body and soul, inside one of our modern prisons. . Robert Walser

And the pine trees that smell so wonderfully of spicy power. Shall I never see a mountain pine again? Really that would be no misfortune. To forgo something: that also has its fragrance and its power. Robert Walser

What we understand and love understands and loves us also. Robert Walser

I tell lies somewhere else, but not here, not in front of myself. Robert Walser

So you, too, like fruitcake? (RW on meeting Lenin in Zurich during World War I.) Robert Walser

How small life is hereand how big nothingness. The sky, tired of light, has given everything to the snow. The two trees bowtheir heads to each other. Clouds cross the world’ssilence in a circle dance Robert Walser

The barber's assistant asks if I am a Swede. An American? Not that either. A Russian? Well, then, what are you? I love to answer such nationalistically tinted questions with a steely silence, and to leave people who ask me about my patriotic feelings in the dark. Or I tell lies and say that I'm Danish. Some kinds of frankness are only hurtful and boring. Robert Walser

Your very eyes. How they have always been for me the command to obey, the inviolable and beautiful commandment. No, no, I'm not telling lies. Your appearance in the doorway! ... You have been my body's health. Whenever I have read a book, it was you I was reading, not the book, you were the book. You were, you were. Robert Walser

You do see me crossing the meadowstiff and dead from the mist? I long for that home, that home I've never had, and without any hopethat I'll ever be able to reach it. For such a home, never touched, I carry that longing that willnever die, like that meadow diesstiff and dead from the mist. You do see me crossing it, full of dread? Robert Walser

On the whole I consider the constant need for delight and diversion in completely new things to be a sign of pettiness, lack of inner life, of estrangement from nature, and of a mediocre or defective gift of understanding. Robert Walser

They should not clench their fists, it’s my longing that’s drawing me near to them;they should not stand there full of rage, my longing is timidly drawing near to them;they should not be ready to pounce like vicious dogs, as if they wanted to tear my longing to shreds;they should not threaten with broad sleeves, that pains my longing. Why have they suddenly changed? As great and deep is my longing. No matter how difficult, no matter how menacing: I must reach them and I’m already there. Robert Walser

Curious, the pleasure it gives me to annoy practitioners of force. Do I actually want this Herr Benjamenta to punish me? Do I have reckless instincts? Everything is possible, everything, even the most sordid and undignified things. Robert Walser