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As an author, you can’t expect a movie to be an illustration of the book. If that’s what you hope for, you shouldn’t sell the rights.

Bernhard Schlink

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

Memories Sometimes Stay True
Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Labyrinth Memories Passion
When an airplane’s engines fail, it is not the end of the flight.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Airplane Failing Flight
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
Or is there no such thing as ‘too late’? Is there only ‘late’ and is ‘late’ always better than ‘never’? I don’t know.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Knows Late Too
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
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
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
What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Feeling Long Sad Thinking
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
There’s this old saying that, if you aren’t particularly gifted in natural sciences, if you don’t want to become a teacher or pastor or doctor, and don’t know what else to do, then you become a lawyer. But I’ve never regretted it.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Doctors Teachers Want
I tried to talk myself into the state of innocence in which children love their parents. But love of our parents is the only love for which we are not responsible. …And perhaps we are responsible even for the love we feel for our parents.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Children Love Myself Parents Perhaps Responsible Talk
Bravery is good when the cause is good.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Bravery Causes Good
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
…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
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
What should our second generation have done, what should it do with the knowledge of the horrors of the extermination of the Jews?
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Believe Experiment Fall Guilt
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
What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Feeling Long Sad Thinking
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
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

Monster People
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
In the past, I had particularly loved her smell. She always smelled freshed, freshly washed or of freshed laundry or fresh sweat or freshly loved
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Laundry Past Smell Sweat
Now to escape involves not just running away, but arriving somewhere.
BERNHARD SCHLINK

Arriving Running Running Away
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 Show Struggle Victory
The Odyssey is the story of motion both purposeful and purposeless, successful and futile. What else is the history of law?
BERNHARD SCHLINK

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

Arriving Running Somewhere

As an author, you can’t expect a movie to be an illustration of the book. If that’s what you hope for, you shouldn’t sell the rights.

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As an author, you can’t expect a movie to be an illustration of the book. If that’s what you hope for, you shouldn’t sell the rights.

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Popular Authors

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