Bruno Schulz Quotes

So, it comes to pass that, when we pursue an inquiry beyond a certain depth, we step out of the field of psychological categories and enter the sphere of the ultimate mysteries of life. The floorboards of the soul, to which we try to penetrate, fan open and reveal the starry firmament.

Bruno Schulz

Soul, Trying, Depth

Bruno Schulz, Jerzy Ficowski (1990). “Letters and drawings of Bruno Schulz: with selected prose”, Fromm Intl

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There are things than cannot ever occur with any precision. They are too big and too magnificent to be contained in mere facts. They are merely trying to occur, they are checking whether the ground of reality can carry them. And they quickly withdraw, fearing to loose their integrity in the frailty of realization.

Bruno Schulz

Integrity, Reality, Trying

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My ideal goal is to "mature" into childhood. That would be genuine maturity.

Bruno Schulz

Maturity, Goal, Childhood

Bruno Schulz, Jerzy Ficowski (1990). “Letters and drawings of Bruno Schulz: with selected prose”, Fromm Intl

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One thing must be avoided at all costs: narrow-mindedness, pedantry, dull pettiness.

Bruno Schulz

Cost, Dull, Avoided

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Could it be that time is too narrow for all events? Could it happen that all the seats within time might have been sold? Worried, we run along the train of events, preparing ourselves for the journey.

Bruno Schulz

Running, Journey, Events

Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer, David Goldfarb (2008). “The street of crocodiles and other stories”, Penguin Classics

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Reality is as thin as paper and betrays with all its cracks its imitative character.

Bruno Schulz

Character, Reality, Cracks

Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer, David Goldfarb (2008). “The street of crocodiles and other stories”, Penguin Classics

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As we manipulate everyday words, we forget that they are fragments of ancient and eternal stories, that we are building our houses with broken pieces of sculptures and ruined statues of gods as the barbarians did.

Bruno Schulz

Broken, House, Everyday

Wojciech Chmurzyński, Bruno Schulz, Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza w Warszawie (1995). “Bruno Schulz 1892-1942: katalog-pamiętnik wystawy "Bruno Schulz. Ad memoriam" w Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza w Warszawie”

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Lifelessness is only a disguise behind which hide unknown forms of life.

Bruno Schulz

Form, Disguise, Behinds

Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer, David Goldfarb (2008). “The street of crocodiles and other stories”, Penguin Classics

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An event may be small and insignificant in its origin , and yet, when drawn close to one’s eye, it may open in its center an infinite and radiant perspective because a higher order of being is trying to express itself in it and irradiates it violently.

Bruno Schulz

Eye, Order, Perspective

Bruno Schulz (2011). “The Fictions of Bruno Schulz: The Street of Crocodiles & Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass: The Street of Crocodiles & Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass”, p.110, Pan Macmillan

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Under the imaginary table that separates me from my readers, don’t we secretly clasp each other’s hands?

Bruno Schulz

Hands, Tables, Reader

Bruno Schulz (2011). “The Fictions of Bruno Schulz: The Street of Crocodiles & Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass: The Street of Crocodiles & Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass”, p.101, Pan Macmillan

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Now the windows, blinded by the glare of the empty square, had fallen asleep. The balconies declared their emptiness to heaven; the open doorways smelt of coolness and wine.

Bruno Schulz

Summer, Wine, Squares

Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer, David Goldfarb (2008). “The street of crocodiles and other stories”, Penguin Classics

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Animals! the object of insatiable interest, examples of the riddle of life, created, as it were, to reveal the human being to man himself, displaying his richness and complexity in a thousand kaleidoscopic possibilities, each of them brought to some curious end, to some characteristic exuberance.

Bruno Schulz

Animal, Men, Example

Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer, David Goldfarb (2008). “The street of crocodiles and other stories”, Penguin Classics

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And one's wandering proved as sterile and pointless as the excitement produced by a close study of pornographic albums.

Bruno Schulz

Albums, Study, Excitement

Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer, David Goldfarb (2008). “The street of crocodiles and other stories”, Penguin Classics

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Even in the depths of sleep, in which he had to satisfy his need for protection and love by curling himself up into a trembling ball, he could not rid himself of the feeling of loneliness and homelessness.

Bruno Schulz

Loneliness, Sleep, Feelings

Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer, David Goldfarb (2008). “The street of crocodiles and other stories”, Penguin Classics

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Ordinary facts are arranged within time, strung along its length as on a thread. There they have their antecedents and their consequences, which crowd tightly together and press hard one upon the other without any pause. This has its importance for any narrative, of which continuity and successiveness are the soul.

Bruno Schulz

Soul, Together, Ordinary

Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer, David Goldfarb (2008). “The street of crocodiles and other stories”, Penguin Classics

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The days hardened with cold and boredom like last year's loaves of bread. One began to cut them with blunt knives without appetite, with a lazy indifference.

Bruno Schulz

Cutting, Years, Knives

Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer, David Goldfarb (2008). “The street of crocodiles and other stories”, Penguin Classics

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Man was entering under false pretenses the sphere of incredible facilities, acquired too cheaply, below cost price, almost for nothing, and the disproportion between outlay and gain, the obvious fraud on nature, the excessive payment for a trick of genius, had to be offset by self-parody.

Bruno Schulz

Men, Self, Cost

Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer, David Goldfarb (2008). “The street of crocodiles and other stories”, Penguin Classics

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Yet what is to be done with events that have no place of their own in time; events that have occurred too late, after the whole of time has been distributed, divided, and allotted; events that have been left in the cold, unregistered, hanging in the air, homeless, and errant?

Bruno Schulz

Air, Events, Too Late

Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer, David Goldfarb (2008). “The street of crocodiles and other stories”, Penguin Classics

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In our town there was a Gestapo officer who loved to play chess. After the occupation began, he found out that my father was the chess master of the region, and so he had him to his house every night.

Bruno Schulz

Father, Night, Play

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How can one not succumb and allow one's courage to fail when everything is shut tight, when all meaningful things are walled up, and when you constantly knock against bricks, as against the walls of a prison?

Bruno Schulz

Meaningful, Wall, Bricks

Bruno Schulz, Jonathan Safran Foer, David Goldfarb (2008). “The street of crocodiles and other stories”, Penguin Classics

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This enraged the other Nazi so much that the next morning he came to our house and he shot my father.

Bruno Schulz

Morning, Father, House

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...."the sound of a barrel organ rising from the deepest golden vein of the day; two or three bars of a chorus, played on a distant piano over and over again, melting in the sun on the white pavement, lost in the fire of high noon.

Bruno Schulz

Fire, Two, Piano

Bruno Schulz (1963). “Cinnamon Shops: And Other Stories”

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Born: July 12, 1892
Died: November 19, 1942
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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