Elias Canetti

Who was Elias Canetti?

Elias Canetti was a Bulgarian-born Swiss and British modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer. He wrote in German. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power".

Famous Quotes:

• When you write down your life, every page should contain something no one has ever heard about.
• The fear of burglars is not only the fear of being robbed, but also the fear of a sudden and unexpected clutch out of the darkness.
• Someone who always has to lie discovers that every one of his lies is true.
• The profoundest thoughts of the philosophers have something trickle about them. A lot disappears in order for something to suddenly appear in the palm of the hand.
• One should not confuse the craving for life with endorsement of it.
• There is no doubt: the study of man is just beginning, at the same time that his end is in sight.
• The paranoiac is the exact image of the ruler. The only difference is their position in the world. One might even think the paranoiac the more impressive of the two because he is sufficient unto himself and cannot be shaken by failure.
• As if one could know the good a person is capable of, when one doesn't know the bad he might do.
• A modern man has nothing to add to modernism, if only because he has nothing to oppose it with. The well-adapted drop off the dead limb of time like lice.
• Adults find pleasure in deceiving a child. They consider it necessary, but they also enjoy it. The children very quickly figure it out and then practice deception themselves.