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When an airplane’s engines fail, it is not the end of the flight.

Bernhard Schlink

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

Citizens Married Trying
I can’t say I’m thankful about being German because I sometimes experience it as a huge burden. But it is an integral part of me and I wouldn’t want to escape it. I have accepted it.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Accepted Sometimes Want
Sometimes I had the feeling that she hurt herself when she turned cold and rigid. As if what she was yearning for was the warmth of my apologies, protestations, and entreaties. Sometimes I thought she just bullied me. But either way, I had no choice.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Apologize Herself Rigid Sometimes Warmth
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
why does what was beautiful shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths?
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Beautiful Dark Shatter Truth
Now to escape involves not just running away, but arriving somewhere.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Arriving Running Running Away
When we open ourselves you yourself to me and I myself to you, when we submerge you into me and I into you when we vanish into me you and into you I Then am I me and you are you.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Open Ourselves Submerge Vanish
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. Sometimes I had the feeling that she hurt herself when she turned cold and rigid.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Apology Hurt Mistake
People who commit monstrous crimes are not necessarily monsters. If they were, things would be easy. But they aren’t and it is one of the experiences of life.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Crime Monster People
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
Now to escape involves not just running away, but arriving somewhere.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Arriving Running Somewhere
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

Love More Reader Suffering
Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Labyrinth Memories Passion
Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Memories Sometimes Stay True
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

When an airplane’s engines fail, it is not the end of the flight.

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When an airplane’s engines fail, it is not the end of the flight.

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