Bernhard Schlink Quotes

Philosophy has forgotten about children

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.

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.

There’s no need to talk about it, because the truth of what one says lies in what one does.

Sometimes all it took was a scene in a movie. This juxtaposition of callousness and extreme sensitivity seemed suspicious even to me.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.