Book Highlight: Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

12/24/2025

Can't believe it has taken me this long to read this classic. It was one of those books that took me like five tries to start reading, but once I got into it I was hooked. Here are some of my favorite quotes.

"You should not take old people who are already dead seriously. It does them injustice. We immortals do not like things to be taken seriously. We like joking. Seriousness, young man, is an accident of time. It consists, I don't mind telling you in confidence, in putting too high a value on time. I, too, once put too high a value on time. For that reason I wished to be a hundred years old. In eternity, however, there is no time, you see. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke."

"What a coward you are! Every one risks being laughed at when he addresses a girl. That's always at stake. So take the risk, Harry, and if the worst come to the worst let yourself be laughed at."

"Time and the world, money and power belong to the small people and the shallow people. To the rest, to the real men belongs nothing. Nothing but death [and] eternity...what they call the communion of the saints. The saints, these are the true men, the younger brothers of the Savior. We are with them all our lives long in every good deed, in every brave thought, in every love...It is there we belong. There is our home. It is that which our heart strives for...Ah, Harry, we have to stumble through so much dirt and humbug before we reach home. And we have no one to guide us. Our only guide is our homesickness."

"Brother Harry, I invite you to a little entertainment. For madmen only, and one price only - your mind. Are you ready?"

"You know, of course, where this other world lies hidden. It is the world of your own soul that you seek. Only within yourself exists that other reality for which you long."

"Now, true humor begins when a man ceases to take himself seriously."

"Better learn to listen first! Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest."