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Killing Stella

by Marlen Haushofer · 1958

Left alone for the weekend while her husband and two children are visiting her in-laws, the narrator of Killing Stella recounts the addition of her friend’s daughter, Stella, into their already tense and tumultuous… more

8 quotes ★ 3.76 (3,224) Fiction

Quotes from the Book

No one is a stricter guardian of morality than the secret lawbreaker, for it is clear to them that humanity would crumble and perish if everyone lived as they did.
1
Of course I could also think about the future, but I never do that. It will come without any intervention from me and in some strange way the future will turn us into something that we never wanted to be. Every minute, every second transforms us further from ourselves.
My law was the unimpeachability of life
Richard is a born traitor. Equipped with a body that grants him constant pleasure
Something must have happened to me years ago; since then I don’t think I’ve been able to tolerate the idea that
A woman over thirty needs to be able to stop suffering
I read somewhere that you can get used to anything
The act of salvation is never performed, because anyone with the strength to carry it out is unaware that they must do it, and the knowing person is incapable of action

About Marlen Haushofer

We have collected 16 quotes from 2 books by Marlen Haushofer on BookQuoters.

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About the book

Left alone for the weekend while her husband and two children are visiting her in-laws, the narrator of Killing Stella recounts the addition of her friend’s daughter, Stella, into their already tense and tumultuous household. Staring out the window at her garden, she worries about the baby bird in the linden tree, about her husband, Richard, who flits from one adulterous affair to an other, about her son’s gloomy demeanor and her daughter’s obliviousness to everything, and, most of all, she worries about Stella, a confused teenager who has just met a sudden and disastrous end.

A domestic horror story that builds to an apocalyptic ending, Killing Stella distills many of the themes of Marlen Haushofer’s acclaimed novel The Wall into a claustrophobic, gothic, shattering novella.

Book details

First published
1958
Genre
Fiction
Goodreads rating
3.76 (3k ratings)

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