And so they are ever returning to us, the dead.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that memories of those who have passed away continue to influence our lives.
W. G. Sebald's quote reflects on the enduring presence of deceased individuals in our lives, emphasizing how memories, thoughts, and emotions tied to them persist and shape our experiences. It underscores the idea that the influence of the dead is not confined to the past, but rather, it continues to resonate within us, impacting our present and future.
In practice
At a memorial service, one could say, 'And so they are ever returning to us, the dead,' to express how the deceased continue to affect our lives.
How happily, said Austerlitz, have I sat over a book in the deepening twilight until I could no longer make out the words and my mind began to wander, and how secure have I felt seated at the desk in my house in the dark night, just watching the tip of my pencil in the lamplight following its shadow, as if of its own accord and with perfect fidelity, while that shadow moved regularly from left to right, line by line, over the ruled paper.
When I was a boy, I'd hide under the kitchen table and wind string around the chairs. I have a sense now that I am pulling on those threads. The more I pull, the more it comes unraveled.
If you're based in two places, on a bad day you see only the disadvantages everywhere. On a bad day, returning to Germany brings back all kinds of spectres from the past.
The seasons and the years came and went...and always...one was, as the crow flies, about 2,000 km away - but from where? - and day by day hour by hour, with every beat of the pulse, one lost more and more of one's qualities, became less comprehensible to oneself, increasingly abstract.
You could grow up in Germany in the postwar years without ever meeting a Jewish person. There were small communities in Frankfurt or Berlin, but in a provincial town in south Germany, Jewish people didn't exist.
No matter whether one is flying over Newfoundland or the sea of lights that stretches from Boston to Philadelphia after nightfall, over the Arabian deserts which gleam like mother-of-pearl, over the Ruhr or the city of Frankfurt, it is as though there were no people, only the things they have made and in which they are hiding.
Every country has a founding mythology. For Americans, it starts with our first president's youthful encounter with a cherry tree and refusal to tell a lie. Mr. Trump would do well to find inspiration in that story, which goes to the heart of what makes America different - and our foreign policy effective - around the world.
Why should I care about posterity? What's posterity ever done for me?
The greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion; hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere.
According to the Stoics, all vice was resolvable into folly: according to the Christian principle, it is all the effect of weakness.
Something I owe to the soil that grew-More to the life that fed-But most to Allah who gave me two Separate sides of my head. I would go without shirt or shoes, Friends, tobacco, or bread Sooner than for an instant lose Either side of my head.
It is essential to resist the depiction of history as the work of heroic individuals
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