Thomas Bernhard Quotes

We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.

Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. They will practice Indian yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict regimen of diet, learn the literature of the whole world - all because they cannot get on with themselves and have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own souls.

If you travel too often, you actually come face-to-face with what you're trying to escape. I feel like when I travel alone, sometimes it's like being locked in a hotel room with my own worst enemy.

My greatest strength is to have a great capacity to confront myself no matter how unpleasant. My greatest weakness is that I don't. I know that's enigmatic, but that's sort of a general formula for anyone, actually.

I must ... warn my readers that my attacks are directed against themselves, not against my stage figures.

There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve, then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tiny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.

I have begun writing what I have said I'd never write, a memoir ("I am not my own subject," I used to say with icy superiority).

People are running, running, but there is no place in the world to which they can flee to escape themselves. Ultimately, each one must face himself.

Not even for an hour can you bear to be alone, nor can you advantageously apply your leisure time, but you endeavor, a fugitive and wanderer, to escape from yourself, now vainly seeking to banish remorse by wine, and now by sleep; but the gloomy companion presses on you, and pursues you as you fly.

Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.

I am still a person with a sense of superficiality that I'm trying to challenge.

I've always been strong-minded, but I wonder.

Today I start a diary; it is against my usual habbits, but out of a clearly felt need.

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them.

It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.

It's a noisy environment we all live in, whether it's traffic or the workplace, so it's very difficult to think about your life in general. A lot of people are afraid to do that. They like to hide behind their work and not face up to a big problem in their life.

Anybody can get lost in themselves.

When I read profiles of myself, I sometimes think: 'I have spent my whole life struggling to understand my motivations and impulses, and I've never quite sorted them out.'

I'm not quite sure when I began to be troubled by the creeping sense of my own ludicrousness, but it persisted - and eventually grew into a fascination. I started writing about it. Thus, in His characteristically mysterious way, the Lord made clear His plans for me.

If you're open to it, New Orleans will teach you about yourself, but if you want to hide from who you really are, the city will help you do that, too.

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.

I really have had to swallow my own prejudice at times.

I just want to live each moment, but it's kind of hard to do that when you are asked to analyze yourself constantly. But it's also good in that you are forced to think about things that you don't ordinarily think about. I think it's strange.

I don't really look at myself as the kind of person who craves attention, but I've never been to therapy so there's probably a lot of stuff about myself that I don't know.