W. G. Sebald Quotes

The past is the beginning of the beginning and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn.

Let's go back, back to the Beginning.

Everything starts from a dot.

Everything must have a beginning ... and that beginning must be linked to something that went before.

Maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots.

No stream rises higher than its source

According to the Law of Cause and Effect, every effect must have a cause. In other words, everything that happens has a catalyst; everything that came into being has something that caused it. Things don't just happen by themselves.

In the beginning, there was noise. Noise begat rhythm, and rhythm begat everything else.

With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere.

General principles... are to the facts as the root and sap of a tree are to its leaves.

Nothing I'm doing is without its predecessors.

Rivers neede a spring.

It is difficult to think of an origin without wanting to go back beyond it.

It's the place to begin, always -- to return to home, literally.

You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree.

Where did you come from, baby dear? Out of the everywhere and into here.

You can't no more teach what you ain't learned than you can come from where you ain't been.

You came from a source.

To begin, at the beginning.

Every doctrine has a theory of the beginning.

We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from.

He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin ... will obtain the clearest view of them.

So let's start at the very begining (a very good place to start...)

Will we ever learn that certain things can be understood only if we take the trouble to trace them to their origins.