2
" We always wonder, when we see two people together, particularly when they're actually married, how these two people could have arrived at such a decision, such an act, so we tell ourselves that it's a matter of human nature, that it's very often a case of two people going together, getting together, only in order to kill themselves in time, sooner or later to kill themselves, after mutually tormenting each other for years for for decades, only to end up killing themselves anyway, people who get together even though they probably clearly perceive their future of shared torment, who join together, get married, in the teeth of all reason, who against all reason commit the natural crime of bringing children into the world who then proceed to be the unhappiest imaginable people, we have evidence of this situation wherever we look... People who get together and marry even though they can foresee their future together only as a lifelong shared martyrdom, suddenly all these people qua human beings, human beings qua ordinary people... enter into a union, into a marriage, into their annihilation, step by step down they go into the most horrible situation imaginable, annihilation by marriage, meaning annihilation mental, emotional, and physical, as we can see all around us, the whole world is full of instances confirming this... why, I may well ask myself, this senseless sealing of the bargain, we wonder about it because we have an instance of it before us, how did this instance come to be? "
― Thomas Bernhard , Correction
4
" We're constantly correcting, and correcting ourselves, most rigorously , because we recognize at every moment that we did it all wrong, how we acted all wrong, that everything to this point in time is a falsification, so we correct this falsification, and then we again correct the correction of this falsification and we correct the result of the correction of a correction and so forth, so Roithamer. But the ultimate correction is one we keep delaying, the kind others have made without ado from one minute to the next, I think, so Roithamer, the kind they could, by the time they no longer thought about it, because they were afraid even to think about it, but then they did correct themselves, like my cousin, like his father, my uncle, like all the others whom we knew, as we thought, whom we knew so thoroughly, yet we didn't really know all these peoples' characters, because their self-correction took us by surprise, otherwise we wouldn't have been surprised by their ultimate existential correction, their suicide. "
― Thomas Bernhard , Correction
6
" When a body is acted upon by external forces besides its weight it tips over on one side of the base if the (so-called) weight (vector) acts along a line through the so-called center-of-mass that intersects the supporting surface outside the base of the body; in the case of a stable equilibrium, the weight vector points inside the base, in the case of an unstable equilibrium it points exactly toward the tilting edge of the base, "tilting edge of the base" underlined. We always went to far, so Roithamer, so we were always pushing toward the extreme limit. But we never thrust ourselves beyond it. Once I have thrust myself beyond it, it's all over, so Roithamer, "all" underlined. We're always set toward the predetermined moment, "predetermined moment" underlined. When that moment has come, we don't know that it has come, but it is the right moment. We can exist at the heighest degree of intensity as long as we live, so Roithamer (June 7). The end is no process. Clearing. "
― Thomas Bernhard , Correction
7
" In every area of life there's nothing but chaos. Wherever we turn there's chaos, in the sciences there's chaos, in politics, it's chaos, whatever we do, it's all chaotic, wherever we look, purely chaotic conditions, chaotic conditions are all we ever have to deal with. Because everything is being done precipitately, in a rush. In such a time of precipitateness and overhastiness and the consequent chaotic conditions a thinking man should never act precipitately or overhastily in anything that concerns him, but every single one of us constantly acts precipitately, overhastily, in every way. "
― Thomas Bernhard , Correction
10
" In itself that music festival was nothing special, these music festivals in our country are all alike, performing a most useful function especially for all those people who are chained to their labors, year in and year out, so naturally everybody comes flocking to the two or three music festivals per year, with their actual and their so-called amusements and distractions, these affairs are called music festivals because unlike the usual so-called country fairs they feature a band, an enormous attraction to the populace, that's all it is, but the organizers know that they can draw a much larger crowd by calling it a music festival rather than a country fair, so it has become the custom to call these events music festivals even if they are nothing more than country fairs, everybody attends these music festivals which usually begin early on Saturday night and end late on Sunday morning. "
― Thomas Bernhard , Correction
14
" Thinking it over, one’s life is both the longest possible and the shortest possible, simultaneously, because it can be rethought and re-experienced in a moment, always in that moment in which such a (bold) thought occurs to one. Always wanting the impossible and left with the possible in his minimal existence, the individual always finds himself in the lowest depths of dissatisfaction. Nevertheless he always manages to create another life situation for himself, probably because he really loves life, just as it is. We always crave something other than we can have, than we have, other than what is suitable for us, and so we’re unhappy. When we’re happy we immediately analyze this happiness to death, if we’re like Roithamer and so forth, and are right back in misery. "
― Thomas Bernhard , Correction
