Quotes from Tonio Kröger

“I stand between two worlds. I am at home in neither, and I suffer in consequence. You artists call me a bourgeois, and the bourgeois try to arrest me...I don't know which makes me feel worse.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Whoever loves the more is at a disadvantage and must suffer”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Seltsam ist es. Beherrscht dich ein Gedanke, so findest du ihn überall ausgedrückt,
du r i e c h s t ihn sogar im Winde.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“He undressed, lay down, put out the light. Two names he whispered into his pillow, the few chaste northern syllables that meant for him his true and native way of love, of longing and happiness; that meant to him life and home, meant simple and heartfelt feeling. He looked back on the years that had passed. He thought of the dreamy adventures of the senses, nerves, and mind in which he had been involved; saw himself eaten up with intellect and introspection, ravaged and paralysed by insight, half worn out by the fevers and frosts of creation, helpless and in anguish of conscience between two extremes, flung to and fro between austerity and lust; raffiné, impoverished, exhausted by frigid and artificially heightened ecstasies; erring, forsaken, martyred, and ill -- and sobbed with nostalgia and remorse.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Mere knowledge of human psychology would in itself infallibly make us despondent if we were not cheered and kept alert by the satisfaction of expressing it.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“He worked, not like a man who works that he may live; but as one who is bent on doing nothing but work; having no regard for himself as a human being but only as a creator; moving about grey and unobtrusive among his fellows like an actor without his make-up, who counts for nothing as soon as he stops representing something else.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Ako vam je suviše stalo do onoga što imate kazati, ako vam je ono suviše priraslo srcu, možete biti sigurni, da ćete doživeti potpuni neuspeh. Postat ćete patetični, postati ćete sentimentalni, pod vašim rukama nastaće nešto nezgrapno, nespretno, neozbiljno, neobuzdano, bez ironije, neslano, dosadno, banalno a kraj priče biće: samo ravnodušnost u ljudi, samo razočaranje i jad u vama.
Jer tako vam je to , Lizaveto: Osećaj, topli, srdačni osećaj uvek je banalan i neupotrebljiv a umetnička je samo razdraženost i hladna ekstaza našeg pokvarenog, našeg artističkog živčanog sistema”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Denn das Glück, sagte er sich, ist nicht, geliebt zu werden; das ist mit Ekel gemischte Genugtuung für die Eitelkeit. Das Glück ist, zu lieben und vielleicht kleine, trügerische Annäherungen an den geliebten Gegenstand zu erhaschen.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“What they, in their innocence, cannot comprehend is that a properly constituted, healthy, decent man never writes, acts, or composes.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Ako je lutao, bilo je to zato, što za neke ljude uopšte nema pravog puta.
Kad bi ga pitali, šta zapravo kani postati, davao bi različite odgovore, jer je običavao reći ( a bio je to već i napisao), da nosi u sebi mogućnosti za hiljadu načina života, zajedno s potajnom svesti, da su to zapravo same nemogućnosti.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Čudno je to. Kad čoveka obuzme neka misao, onda je nalazi svuda, čak je i miriše u vetru.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Io sto tra due mondi, di cui nessuno e' il mio, e per questo la mia vita e' un po' difficile.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Sì: vi sono alcuni che necessariamente smarriscono la strada, poiché per loro non esiste una strada giusta.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“C’è nostalgia, dentro, e malinconica invidia, appena un po’ di disprezzo e una grande, casta felicità.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Non lavorava come chi lavora per vivere, ma come qualcuno che non abbia altro scopo che lavorare, giudicandosi zero come uomo vivente e desiderando essere considerato solo in quanto artefice, che per il resto se ne va in giro modesto e insignificante, come un attore senza trucco, che non è nulla finchè non ha nulla da interpretare. Lavorava silenzioso, appartato, invisibile e pieno di disprezzo per quei mediocri che consideravano il genio un ornamento mondano e, poveri o ricchi che fossero, andavano in giro arruffati e cenciosi, o ricercavano il lusso con eccentriche cravatte, e insomma erano convinti di menare una vita insuperabilmente felice, affascinante e artistica; senza sapere che le opere di valore nascono solo sotto il premere di una vita cattiva, che colui che vive non lavora e che, per essere perfetti creatori, bisogna essere morti.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Vuole credere lei che sarei orgoglioso e felice di possedere un amico tra gli uomini? Ma fino ad ora ho avuto amici solo tra demoni, farfarelli, mostri oscuri e fantasmi afasiaci, vale a dire: tra letterati.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“A felicidade é amar e talvez colher pequenas aproximações ilusórias da pessoa amada.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“... sentia a distância que o separava dela, pois seu modo de falar não era o dela. E mesmo assim era feliz, pois a felicidade, dizia para si mesmo, não é ser amado; isto é uma satisfação misturada com asco para a vaidade. A felicidade é amar e talvez colher pequenas aproximações ilusórias da pessoa amada.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Chi più ama è il più debole e deve soffrire.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Ricominciar da capo? Ma non servirebbe a nulla. Sarebbe di nuovo così, tutto accadrebbe di nuovo come è già accaduto. Poiché alcuni non possono che smarrire il cammino, in quanto per essi una strada giusta proprio non esiste.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“ბედნიერება იმაში კი არ არის, რომ უყვარდეთ; ეს გაძლევს მხოლოდ კმაყოფილების გრძნობას. იყო ბედნიერი - ნიშნავს გიყვარდეს, დაიჭირო წარმავალი, შესაძლოა მაცდური წამიერი გაელვებები, შენი სიყვარულის ობიექტის სიახლოვეს”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Y, aunque sabía muy bien que el amor le tenía que aportar muchos sufrimientos, torturas y humillaciones y que, además, le robaba la paz y colmaba su corazón de melodías, sin poder hallar el sosiego necesario para dar forma definitiva a nada y forjar proyectos con tranquilidad, sin embargo, acogió el amor con alegría, se entregó enteramente a él y lo fomentó con todas las fibras de su corazón, pues sabía que lo enriquecía y vivificaba, y él anhelaba ser rico y estar lleno de vida en vez de tener tranquilidad para forjarse proyectos.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

About the author

Popular quotes

“Skill in any performance whether it be in sports in playing the piano in conversation or in selling merchandise consists not in painfully and consciously thinking out each action as it is performed but in relaxing and letting the job do itself through you. Creative performance is spontaneous and ‘natural’ as opposed to self-conscious and studied.”
― quote from Psycho-Cybernetics

“I can’t bear the thought of not being with you, Eva,” he says, making my tears fall harder. “I don’t ever want to lose you.” “I’ll always find you,” I choke out. “I promise I’ll always find you.”
― Natalie Ward, quote from Losing Me Finding You

“My mother is finally rolling out her kulebiaka dough, maneuvering intently on a dime size oasis of kitchen counter. I inhale the sweetish tang of fermented yeast once again and try to plumb my unconscious for some collective historical taste memory. No dice. There's no yeast in my DNA. No heirloom pie recipes passed down by generations of women in the yellowing pages of family notebooks, scribbled in pre-revolutionary Russian orthography. My two grandmothers were emaciated New Soviet women, meaning they barely baked, wouldn't be caught dead cooking 'czarist.' Curious and passionate about food all her life, Mom herself only became serious about baking after we emigrated. In the USSR she relied on a dough called na skoruyu ruku ('flick of a hand'), a version involving little kneading and no rising. It was a recipe she'd had to teach her mother. My paternal babushka, Alla, simply wasn't interested.”
― Anya von Bremzen, quote from Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing

“أؤمن بأن هذا الشعب لا يفنى”
― quote from The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist

“Today we often use deadlines—real and imaginary—to imprison ourselves.”
― Arianna Huffington, quote from Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.