Elfriede Jelinek Quotes & Sayings

“I do not fight against men, but against the system that is sexist.”

“Literature that keeps employing new linguistic and formal modes of expression to draft a panorama of society as a whole while at the same time exposing it, tearing the masks from its face - for me that would be deserving of an award.”

“Eroding solidarity paradoxically makes a society more susceptible to the construction of substitute collectives and fascisms of all kinds.”

“As is said about most writers: on the one hand all I ever did from when I was a child was read, and I was a loner, which was furthered by my parents and my upbringing.”

“The problem is that it is difficult to translate.”

“It could draw from a greater reservoir of freedom. The irony could develop an even greater ease.”

“I do not want to have the feeling of writing 'for eternity', so to speak.”

“I have the feeling it will influence my future writing to the extent that without any material worries I could develop a greater ease, even lightheartedness, in my writing.”

“My training in music and composition then led me to a kind of musical language process in which, for example, the sound of the words I play with has to expose their true meaning against their will so to speak.”

“I cannot stand public attention, I just can't. Of course, if I may I might write something instead.”