"There were profound reasons for his attachment to the sea: he loved it because as a hard-working artist he needed rest, needed to escape from the demanding complexity of phenomena and lie hidden on the bosom of the simple and tremendous; because of a forbidden longing deep within him that ran quite contrary to his life's task and was for that very reason seductive, a longing for the unarticulated and immeasurable, for eternity, for nothingness. To rest in the arms of perfection is the desire of any man intent upon creating excellence; and is not nothingness a form of perfection?"
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LGBT peopleNobel laureates in LiteratureEssayists from GermanyNovelists from GermanyAutobiographers from Germany
Original Language: English
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Ch. 3, as translated by David Luke
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Mann
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Thomas Mann
1875 – 1955
deutscher Schriftsteller
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