Quotes
2,628 quote
No one would ever believe how hard it is to be really alone in a city of millions when you don't have money.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
The only respect in which man is superior to animals is that he can die when he wants to, not just when he has to. Maybe it's the one freedom you can always count on — the freedom to throw your life away.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
Something indefinite is always worse than something definite, a strong fear that doesn't last very long is easier than one that's nebulous but doesn't go away.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
Nothing makes you madder than wanting to defend yourself against something you can't even get hold of, something the human race is doing to you, but still there's nobody you can grab by the throat.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
Fear is a distorting mirror in which anything can appear as a caricature of itself, stretched to terrible proportions; once inflamed, the imagination pursues the craziest and most unlikely possibilities. What is most absurd suddenly seems the most probable.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
Memory is so corrupt that you remember only what you want to; if you want to forget about something, slowly but surely you do.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
There is nothing more vindictive, nothing more underhanded, than a little world that would like to be a big one.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
The subject of a rumor is always the last to hear it.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
Malice is always lucky.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
Hairdressers are professional gossips; when only the hands are busy, the tongue is seldom still.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
Someone who's on top of the world isn't much of an observer: happy people are poor psychologists. But someone who's troubled about something is on the alert. The perceived threat sharpens his senses - he takes in more than he usually does.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
Confidences are always risky: a secret entrusted to a stranger make him less of one. You've given away something of yourself, given him the advantage.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
Names have a mysterious transforming power. Like a ring on a finger, a name may at first seem merely accidental, committing you to nothing; but before you realize its magical power, it's gotten under your skin, become part of you and your destiny.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
He looked at her again, now with the vague abject shyness that older men often have with young women, as though asking their indulgence for no longer being young.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
The soul is made of stuff so mysteriously elastic that a single event can make it big enough to contain the infinite.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
In the end one needs forbearance to get by in this world.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
The dressmaker doesn't have problems unless the dress has to hide rather than reveal.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
All office workers are afraid of being late for work.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
Once shame touches your being at any point, even the most distant nerve is implicated, whether you know it or not; any fleeting encounter or random thought will rake up the anguish and add to it.
Stefan Zweig
•
The Post Office Girl
NOVEL
No guilt is forgotten so long as the conscience still knows of it.
Stefan Zweig
•
Beware of Pity
NOVEL