Create Yours

Top 60 W.G. Sebald Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 2 of 2

W.G. Sebald Quote: “How happily, said Austerlitz, have I sat over a book in the deepening twilight until I could no longer make out the words and my mind began to wander, and how secure have I felt seated at the desk in my house in the dark night, just watching the tip of my pencil in the lamplight following its shadow, as if of its own accord and with perfect fidelity, while that shadow moved regularly from left to right, line by line, over the ruled paper.”

51. “How happily, said Austerlitz, have I sat over a book in the deepening twilight until I could no longer make out the words and my mind began to wander, and how secure have I felt seated at the desk in my house in the dark night, just watching the tip of my pencil in the lamplight following its shadow, as if of its own accord and with perfect fidelity, while that shadow moved regularly from left to right, line by line, over the ruled paper.”

— W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald Quote: “The future exists only in the shape of our present apprehensions and hopes, and the past merely as memory.”

52. “The future exists only in the shape of our present apprehensions and hopes, and the past merely as memory.”

— W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald Quote: “But that day, as I sat on the tranquil shore, it was possible to believe one was gazing into eternity.”

53. “But that day, as I sat on the tranquil shore, it was possible to believe one was gazing into eternity.”

— W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald Quote: “In the house of shadows where the legend rises the deciphering begins.”

54. “In the house of shadows where the legend rises the deciphering begins.”

— W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald Quote: “Once I am at leisure, said Salvatore, I take refuge in prose as one might in a boat. All day long I am surrounded by the clamour on the editorial floor, but in the evening I cross over to an island, and every time, the moment I read the first sentences, it is as if I were rowing far out on the water. It is thanks to my evening reading alone that I am still more or less sane.”

55. “Once I am at leisure, said Salvatore, I take refuge in prose as one might in a boat. All day long I am surrounded by the clamour on the editorial floor, but in the evening I cross over to an island, and every time, the moment I read the first sentences, it is as if I were rowing far out on the water. It is thanks to my evening reading alone that I am still more or less sane.”

— W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald Quote: “Alphonso once told his great-nephew and me that everything was fading before our eyes, and that many of the loveliest of colours had already disappeared, or existed only where no one saw them, in the submarine gardens fathoms deep below the surface of the sea.”

56. “Alphonso once told his great-nephew and me that everything was fading before our eyes, and that many of the loveliest of colours had already disappeared, or existed only where no one saw them, in the submarine gardens fathoms deep below the surface of the sea.”

— W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald Quote: “He was at once saving himself, in some way, and mercilessly destroying himself.”

57. “He was at once saving himself, in some way, and mercilessly destroying himself.”

— W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald Quote: “Like our bodies and like our desires, the machines we have devised are possessed of a heart which is slowly reduced to embers. From the earliest times, human civilization has been no more than a strange luminescence growing more intense by the hour, of which no one can say when it will begin to wane and when it will fade.”

58. “Like our bodies and like our desires, the machines we have devised are possessed of a heart which is slowly reduced to embers. From the earliest times, human civilization has been no more than a strange luminescence growing more intense by the hour, of which no one can say when it will begin to wane and when it will fade.”

— W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald Quote: “Like a tightrope walker who has forgotten how to put one foot in front of the other, all I felt was the swaying of the precarious structure on which I stood, stricken with Terror at the realization that the ends of the balancing pole gleaming far out on the edges of my field of vision were no longer my guiding lights, as before, but malignant enticements to me to cast myself into the depths.”

59. “Like a tightrope walker who has forgotten how to put one foot in front of the other, all I felt was the swaying of the precarious structure on which I stood, stricken with Terror at the realization that the ends of the balancing pole gleaming far out on the edges of my field of vision were no longer my guiding lights, as before, but malignant enticements to me to cast myself into the depths.”

— W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald Quote: “Existence prolonged beyond the experience of death has its affective center in a sense of guilt, the guilt of the survivor, which Niederland describes as the worst psychological burden weighing on those of his patients who had escaped being murdered. It is a particularly macabre irony, as Niederland says, that the survivors and not those who committed Nazi crimes should bear the burden of such guilt.”

60. “Existence prolonged beyond the experience of death has its affective center in a sense of guilt, the guilt of the survivor, which Niederland describes as the worst psychological burden weighing on those of his patients who had escaped being murdered. It is a particularly macabre irony, as Niederland says, that the survivors and not those who committed Nazi crimes should bear the burden of such guilt.”

— W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald Quote: “Once a victim, always a victim.”

61. “Once a victim, always a victim.”

— W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald Quote: “I often come out here, it makes me feel that I am a long way away, though I never quite know from where.”

62. “I often come out here, it makes me feel that I am a long way away, though I never quite know from where.”

— W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald Quote: “Later, Heinrich Boll suggested that such experiences of collective uprooting are at the origin of the German craving for travel: a sense of being unable to stay anywhere, a constant need to be somewhere else. In terms of social conditioning, this would make the ebb and flow of the population bombed out of their homes rather like a rehearsal for initiation into the mobile society that would form in the decades after the catastrophe.”

63. “Later, Heinrich Boll suggested that such experiences of collective uprooting are at the origin of the German craving for travel: a sense of being unable to stay anywhere, a constant need to be somewhere else. In terms of social conditioning, this would make the ebb and flow of the population bombed out of their homes rather like a rehearsal for initiation into the mobile society that would form in the decades after the catastrophe.”

— W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald Quote: “Thirty-six degrees, according to Alphonso, has always proved the best natural level, a kind of magic threshold, and it had sometimes occurred to him, Alphonso, said Austerlitz, that all mankind’s misfortunes were connected with its departure at some point in time from that norm, and with the slightly feverish, overheated condition in which we constantly found ourselves.”

64. “Thirty-six degrees, according to Alphonso, has always proved the best natural level, a kind of magic threshold, and it had sometimes occurred to him, Alphonso, said Austerlitz, that all mankind’s misfortunes were connected with its departure at some point in time from that norm, and with the slightly feverish, overheated condition in which we constantly found ourselves.”

— W.G. Sebald

Motivational Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

PREV 1 2 NEXT

Motivational Quotes

Motivational Quotes

INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS MOTIVATIONAL

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Steve Jobs Quotes

Steve Jobs Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS APPLE

Inspirational Quotes

Inspirational Quotes

COURAGE MOTIVATIONAL STRENGTH

INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS MOTIVATIONAL

Swami Vivekananda Quotes

Swami Vivekananda Quotes

LIFE SPIRITUALITY

Save image...
Permalink
Open in new tab
Copy quote text

Beautiful Wallpapers and Images

We hope you enjoyed our collection of 60 W.G. Sebald Quotes.

All the images on this page were created with QuoteFancy Studio.

Use QuoteFancy Studio to create high-quality images for your desktop backgrounds, blog posts, presentations, social media, videos, posters, and more.

Thank you!

Please check your email.