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.
W. G. SebaldRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the joy and tranquility found in reading and writing, particularly in the quiet moments of twilight and darkness.
In this quote, W. G. Sebald evocatively describes the serene pleasure of losing oneself in a book and the meditative state of writing. The imagery of twilight emphasizes the calming transition from day to night, where distractions fade, and a deeper connection with literature and creativity can flourish. The act of watching the pencil's shadow symbolizes the intimate relationship between the writer and their thoughts, revealing how profound experiences can emerge from simple moments of stillness and reflection.
Themes
ReadingWritingTwilightReflectionCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
During a book club meeting when discussing the joys of reading at dusk.
More from W. G. Sebald
All quotes →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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Physicists now say there is no such thing as time: everything co-exists. Chronology is entirely artificial and essentially determined by emotion. Contiguity suggests layers of things, the past and present somehow coalescing or co-existing.
W. G. SebaldRead
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