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1 " The horse had a fly-net over its head and ears. It looked down on the paving-stones with the empty disappointed expression of an old moral theologian. Whenever the guide spat between his shoes, the horse shook his head in disapproval. "
― Wolfgang Koeppen , Death in Rome
2 " Knurrewahn hatte viel durchgemacht; aber er war nicht weise geworden. "
― Wolfgang Koeppen , The Hothouse
3 " Emmi sprach zu Hillegonda vom Tod, um ihr die Nichtigkeit des Lebens zu beweisen, und sie führte sie in die hohen dunklen Kirchen, um ihren Sinn auf die Ewigkeit zu lenken, aber die kleine Hillegonda schauderte vor dem Tod und fror in den Kirchen. "
― Wolfgang Koeppen
4 " Time that appeared to be standing still was racing by, and Now was a moment ago, this time of seemingly endless duration flew by, if you thought of time as the sum of all the days there had ever been, the alternation of light and dark that is given us on Earth, it was like the wind, it was both something and nothing, it could be measured if you knew how, but even then no one could explain what he was measuring, it flowed round the skin, formed a man, and fled away again, ungraspable, fled whither? whence? "
― Wolfgang Koeppen , Tauben im Gras
5 " Her mouth offered itself to me, and that item of consolation unhinged me! I have never kissed it, but in that hour of ostensibly my lowest humiliation, I could have become someone else, another man in pomp and glory! Yes, if I had lain down at her side then - I could have become a sailor or a revolutionary, a folk hero, a flag-bearer for definite, and the cynosure of all eyes, because, since I didn't become any of these things, I feet that if I had gone to her, I would have had to have become radiant for all eternity. I didn't, and I'm gray, an uninteresting traveler carrying a suitcase whose colorful labels are merely the evidence of meaningless journeys. "
― Wolfgang Koeppen , A Sad Affair
6 " There were youths standing outside the cinema. They were hanging around. What were they hanging around for? They were hanging around waiting for life to begin, and the life they were waiting for didn't begin. Life didn't turn up for them outside the cinema, or if it did come and was standing next to them, they didn't see it, and the people they could see, that they later ended up sharing their lives with, they weren't the ones they were hoping to see. If they'd known it was only going to be them, they wouldn't have bothered standing around waiting. "
