Paul Celan Quotes

Quotes about:

• Only truthful hands write true poems. I cannot see any basic difference between a handshake and a poem.

  Paul Celan

  Inspirational, Writing, Hands

  Paul Celan, Rosemarie Waldrop (2003). “Collected Prose”, p.26, Psychology Press

  73 Copy quote

• Reality is not simply there, it does not simply exist: it must be sought out and won.

  Paul Celan

  Reality, Doe

  30 Copy quote

• who is invisible enough to see you

  Paul Celan

  Invisible, Enough

  Paul Celan (2014). “Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry: A Bilingual Edition”, p.116, Macmillan

  12 Copy quote

• Read! Read all the time, the understanding will come by itself.

  Paul Celan

  Understanding

  6 Copy quote

• A nothing
  we were, are, shall
  remain, flowering:
  the nothing--, the
  no one's rose.

  Paul Celan

  Rose, Holocaust, Flowering

  Paul Celan (1972). “Selected poems”, Penguin Books Ltd

  31 Copy quote

• The heart hid still in the dark, hard as the Philosophers Stone.

  Paul Celan

  Heart, Dark, Stones

  Paul Celan, Rosemarie Waldrop (2003). “Collected Prose”, p.11, Psychology Press

  9 Copy quote

• He speaks truly who speaks the shade.

  Paul Celan

  Shade, Speak

  Paul Celan (1980). “Paul Celan: poems”

  8 Copy quote

• Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss.

  Paul Celan

  Loss, Language, Spite

  Paul Celan, Rosemarie Waldrop (2003). “Collected Prose”, p.34, Psychology Press

  37 Copy quote

• A poem, being an instance of language, hence essentially dialogue, may be a letter in a bottle thrown out to the sea with the-surely not always strong-hope that it may somehow wash up somewhere, perhaps on the shoreline of the heart. In this way, too, poems are en route: they are headed towards. Toward what? Toward something open, inhabitable, an approachable you, perhaps, an approachable reality. Such realities are, I think, at stake in a poem.

  Paul Celan

  Strong, Heart, Reality

  34 Copy quote

• They've healed me to pieces.

  Paul Celan

  Pieces, Healed

  22 Copy quote

• Don't sign your name between worlds, surmount the manifold of meanings, trust the tearstain, learn to live.

  Paul Celan

  Names, World, Manifold

  Paul. Celan (2011). “Glottal Stop: 101 Poems by Paul Celan”, p.108, Wesleyan University Press

  26 Copy quote

• There was earth inside them, and they dug.

  Paul Celan

  Earth

  Paul Celan, Michael Hamburger (1972). “Nineteen poems”

  19 Copy quote

• Poetry is a sort of homecoming.

  Paul Celan

  Inspirational, Homecoming, Poetry Is

  27 Copy quote

• There's nothing in the world for which a poet will give up writing, not even he is a Jew and the language of his poems is German.

  Paul Celan

  Giving Up, Writing, World

  26 Copy quote

• The poem is lonely. It is lonely and en route. Its author stays with it. Does this very fact not place the poem already here, at its inception, in the encounter, in the mystery of encounter?

  Paul Celan

  Lonely, Loneliness, Poetry

  Paul Celan (2005). “Paul Celan: Selections”, p.164, Univ of California Press

  27 Copy quote

• We are told that when Hölderlin went 'mad,' he constantly repeated, 'Nothing is happening to me, nothing is happening to me.'

  Paul Celan

  Mad, Happenings

  25 Copy quote

• in the air, there your root remains, there, in the air

  Paul Celan

  Air, Roots, Remains

  15 Copy quote

• Poetry is perhaps this: an Atemwende, a turning of our breath. Who knows, perhaps poetry goes its way—the way of art—for the sake of just such a turn? And since the strange, the abyss and Medusa’s head, the abyss and the automaton, all seem to lie in the same direction—is it perhaps this turn, this Atemwende, which can sort out the strange from the strange? It is perhaps here, in this one brief moment, that Medusa’s head shrivels and the automaton runs down? Perhaps, along with the I, estranged and freed here, in this manner, some other thing is also set free?

  Paul Celan

  Running, Art, Lying

  29 Copy quote

• The language with which I make my poems has nothing to do with one spoken here, or anywhere.

  Paul Celan

  Language

  7 Copy quote

• German poetry is going in a very different direction from French poetry.... Its language has become more sober, more factual. It distrusts "beauty." It tries to be truthful.

  Paul Celan

  Beauty, Truth, Poetry

  Paul Celan, Rosemarie Waldrop (2003). “Collected Prose”, p.15, Psychology Press

  24 Copy quote

• Each arrow you shoot off carries its own target into the decidedly secret tangle

  Paul Celan

  Arrows, Secret, Target

  Paul. Celan (2011). “Glottal Stop: 101 Poems by Paul Celan”, p.59, Wesleyan University Press

  9 Copy quote

• Tall poplars--human beings of this earth!

  Paul Celan

  Earth, Humans, Tall

  Paul Celan (1980). “Paul Celan: poems”

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• A poem, as a manifestation of language and thus essentially dialogue, can be a message in a bottle, sent out in the –not always greatly hopeful-belief that somewhere and sometime it could wash up on land, on heartland perhaps. Poems in this sense too are under way: they are making toward something. Toward what? Toward something standing open, occupiable, perhaps toward an addressable Thou, toward an addressable reality.

  Paul Celan

  Reality, Land, Hopeful

  10 Copy quote

• Illegibility of this world. All things twice over. The strong clocks justify the splitting hour, hoarsely. You , clamped into your deepest part, climb out of yourself for ever.

  Paul Celan

  Strong, World, Hours

  Paul Celan (1972). “Selected poems”, Penguin Books Ltd

  14 Copy quote

• Reachable, near and not lost, there remained in the midst of the losses this one thing: language. It, the language, remained, not lost, yes, in spite of everything. But it had to pass through its own answerlessness, pass through frightful muting, pass through the thousand darknesses of deathbringing speech. It passed through and gave back no words for that which happened; yet it passed through this happening. Passed through and could come to light again, “enriched” by all this.

  Paul Celan

  Loss, Light, Darkness

  16 Copy quote

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