From Elias Canetti’s The Agony of Flies

To read while the clock is audibly ticking: responsible reading. To read while all clocks have stopped: happy reading.

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Lesen, während die Uhr vernehmlich tickt – verantwortliches Lesen.
Lesen während alle Uhren stehen, glückliches Lesen.

From Elias Canetti’s The Agony of Flies:

All human beings would have a single communal heart, no larger than the hearts we know. But that heart has to make the rounds visiting everybody, for everyone alive has a claim on it. To accommodate this heart, all humans are provided with a cavity into which the communal heart is simply placed, whereupon it immediately makes itself felt. All holy rites and important customs are connected to that heart. The receiving of the heart marks the greatest moment in anyone’s life. Each person is prepared for it for a long time in advance; he is told how rare and old the heart is; how wonderfully strange it is that it has preserved itself all that time and how it derives its indestructibility precisely from the rite of implantation. If the heart were left by itself for any length of time, instead of inside one of the innumerable cavities which await it, it would age and shrivel and lose its power. No one is allowed to possess it more than once. One carrier travels with it to the next: the heart never appears in the same town twice in a row. Whoever is carrying the heart is said to be invulnerable—who could be so blind as to mistake the carrier? He is radiant for as long as he is the chosen one. He well knows how little he deserves such good fortune, but that is of no significance. He has as much right as anyone else to this distinction, and only when he has been awarded it does he become a full-fledged human being.

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Alle Menschen hätten ein gemeinsames Herz, nicht größer als die Herzen, die wir kennen. Es muß aber die Runde machen, denn wer immer zur Welt kommt, hat ein Anrecht darauf. Die Höhlung für dieses Herz liegt in den Menschen bereit, man hat es nur einzusetzen, und es macht sich sogleich bemerkbar. Die wichtigen und heiligen Sitten hängen mit dem Herzen zusammen. Es ist der größte Augenblick in jedermanns Leben, wenn er das Herz bekommt. Er wird lange darauf vorbereitet, man erzählt ihm, wie selten und alt es ist; wie sonderbar es sich erhalten hat, wie es seine Unverwüstlichkeit eben aus dem Ritus der Einsetzung beziehe. Wäre das Herz lange allein, nicht in einer der unzähligen Höhlungen, die darauf warten, es würde altern, es würde schrumpfen und seine Kraft verlieren. Niemand darf es mehr als einmal in sich haben. Ein Träger reist damit zum nächsten: zweimal hintereinander ist es nicht in derselben Stadt. Der Träger gilt als unverletzlich. Wer wäre so blind, den Träger zu verkennen, er leuchtet, solange er der Glückliche ist. Er weiß zwar, wie wenig er sein Glück verdient, aber das hat nichts zu bedeuten. Diese Auszeichnung kommt ihm wie jedem anderen zu und durch sie erst wird er ein voller Mensch.

From Elias Canetti’s The Agony of Flies, a collection of insights, imaginings, and observations compiled from his shorter works by the author himself. I struggle with a fitting description since the form is aphoristic but I think Canetti would run from the claim to broad accuracy and applicability that aphorism typically implies.

Reading seeks to propagate itself in me by reading; I never follow any outside recommendations, or if I do, then only after a very long time. I want to discover what I read. Whoever suggests a book to me knocks it out of my hands; whoever praises it spoils it for me for years. I only trust the minds I truly revere. They can recommend anything to me, and to awaken my curiosity all they have to do is to mention something in a given book. But whatever others recommend with their facile tongues is as if truly cursed. Thus it was hard for me to get to know the great books, for the greatest works long ago have entered the idolatry of the commonplace. People have the names of those books – as well as their heroes – on the tips of their tongues, and since they are so intent on stuffing themselves, they pronounce these names with their mouths full, thereby spoiling my own appetite for what would be so important for me to know.