I asked her about life, and it was as if she rummaged around in a dusty chest to get me the answers.
BERNHARD SCHLINKI asked her about life, and it was as if she rummaged around in a dusty chest to get me the answers.
BERNHARD SCHLINKI 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 SCHLINKI’m not frightened. I’m not frightened of anything. The more I suffer, the more I love. Danger will only increase my love. It will sharpen it, forgive its vice.
BERNHARD SCHLINKSometimes all it took was a scene in a movie. This juxtaposition of callousness and extreme sensitivity seemed suspicious even to me.
BERNHARD SCHLINKThere’s no need to talk about it, because the truth of what one says lies in what one does.
BERNHARD SCHLINKIn 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 SCHLINKWe make our own truths and lies….Truths are often lies and lies truths.
BERNHARD SCHLINKWhat 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 SCHLINKPeople 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 SCHLINKThe past has to be remembered, so that it’s never repeated.
BERNHARD SCHLINKNow to escape involves not just running away, but arriving somewhere.
BERNHARD SCHLINKDesires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again.
BERNHARD SCHLINKSometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily.
BERNHARD SCHLINKWhat 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 SCHLINKI 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 SCHLINKWhat is law? Is it what is on the books, or what is actually enacted and obeyed in a society? Or is law what must be enacted and obeyed, whether or not it is on the books, if things are to go right?
BERNHARD SCHLINK