black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

She was struggling, as she always had struggled, not to show what she could do but to hide what she couldn’t do. A life made up of advances that were actually frantic retreats and victories that were concealed defeats.

Bernhard Schlink

We make our own truths and lies….Truths are often lies and lies truths.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Lying Make Own Truth
Sometimes all it took was a scene in a movie. This juxtaposition of callousness and extreme sensitivity seemed suspicious even to me.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Callousness Juxtaposition Sensitivity Sometimes
There’s no need to talk about it, because the truth of what one says lies in what one does.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Doe Lying Needs
I will be the only angel you need. You will leave life even more beautiful than you entered it. Heaven will take you back and look at you and say: Only one thing can make a soul complete and that thing is love.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Angel Complete Entered Heaven One Talk Thing
The more I suffer, the more I love.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Reader Suffering
I certainly know German colleagues in the US who try to be Americans, try to melt into Americanism, even before they get married and become American citizens. But I’ve never tried that.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Citizen Married Trying
She was struggling, as she always had struggled, not to show what she could do but to hide what she couldn’t do. A life made up of advances that were actually frantic retreats and victories that were concealed defeats.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Retreat Struggle Victory
It was more dangerous not to go; I was running the risk of becoming trapped in my own fantasies. So I was doing the right thing by going. She would behave normally, I would behave normally, and everything would be normal again.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Right Risk Running Thing Trapped
The Odyssey is the story of motion both purposeful and purposeless, successful and futile. What else is the history of law?
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Law Stories Successful
Now to escape involves not just running away, but arriving somewhere.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Arriving Running Running Away
…I had to point at Hanna. But the finger I pointed at her turned back to me. I had loved her. I tried to tell myself that I had known nothing of what she had done when I chose her.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Children Done Parent
The more I suffer, the more I love.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Love More Reader Suffering
I took all the blame. I admitted mistakes I hadn’t made, intentions I’d never had. Whenever she turned cold and hard, I begged her to be good to me again, to forgive me and love me.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Apology Begged Hurt Mistake
I did not know that children think the hard questions they ask are easy and thus expect easy answers to them, and that they are disappointed when they get cautious, complex answers.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Answers Children Thinking
So I was still guilty. And if I was not guilty because one cannot be guilty of betraying a criminal, then I was guilty of having loved a criminal.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Betray Criminals Guilty
The past has to be remembered, so that it’s never repeated.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Past Remembered Repeated

She was struggling, as she always had struggled, not to show what she could do but to hide what she couldn’t do. A life made up of advances that were actually frantic retreats and victories that were concealed defeats.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

She was struggling, as she always had struggled, not to show what she could do but to hide what she couldn’t do. A life made up of advances that were actually frantic retreats and victories that were concealed defeats.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bernhard Schlink Quotes