Thomas Mann

I love and reverence the Word, the bearer of the spirit, the tool and gleaming ploughshare of progress.

Settembrini's view of literature, Ch. 4, 1924

It is a cruel atmosphere down there, cruel and ruthless.

Hans Castorp on the world outside the sanatorium, in Ch. 5, 1924

Le corps, l'amour, la mort, ces trois ne font qu'un. Car le corps, c'est la maladie et la volupté, et c'est lui qui fait la mort, oui, ils sont charnels tous deux, l'amour et la mort, et voilà leur terreur et leur grande magie!

Rough translation of this passage written in French: The body, love, death, these three are just one. For the body, this is the disease and exquisite delight, and this that does die, yes, they are carnal both of them, love and death, and thus their terror and their great magic!, 1924

I, for one, have never in my life come across a perfectly healthy human being.

The psychoanalyst "Dr. Krokowski" in Ch. 1, 1924

Asia surrounds us — wherever one's glance rests, a Tartar physiognomy.

Variant translation: Asia devours us. Wherever one looks: Tartar faces., 1924

Six months at most after they get here, these young people — and they are mostly young who come — have lost every idea they had, except flirtation and temperature.

Settembrini on the Magic Mountain Society, in Ch. 5, 1924

Extraordinary creature! So close a friend, and yet so remote.

Herr und Hund (A Man and his Dog) (1918), 1918

This was Venice, the flattering and suspect beauty — this city, half fairy tale and half tourist trap, in whose insalubrious air the arts once rankly and voluptuously blossomed, where composers have been inspired to lulling tones of somniferous eroticism.

Ch. 5, as translated by David Luke, 1912

Never had he felt the joy of the word more sweetly, never had he known so clearly that Eros dwells in language.

Ch. 4, as translated by David Luke, 1912

The writer's joy is the thought that can become emotion, the emotion that can wholly become a thought.

Ch. 4, as translated by David Luke, 1912

How else is the famous short story ‘A study in Abjection’ to be understood but as an outbreak of disgust against an age indecently undermined by psychology.

On a short story of the character, "Gustav Aschenbach". Ch. 2, as translated by David Luke, 1912

But he would “stay the course” — it was his favorite motto.

The disposition of the main character "Gustav Aschenbach", Ch. 2, as translated by David Luke, 1912

If you are possessed by an idea, you find it expressed everywhere, you even smell it.

Variant translation: It is strange. If an idea gains control of you, you will find it expressed everywhere, you will actually smell it in the wind., 1902

What they, in their innocence, cannot comprehend is that a properly constituted, healthy, decent man never writes, acts, or composes.

"Tonio Kröger" on general opinions about artists., 1902

We are most likely to get angry and excited in our opposition to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted to take the other side.

Buddenbrooks [Buddenbrooks: Verfall einer Familie, Roman] (1901). Pt 8, Ch. 2, 1901