Bernhard Schlink Quotes

But then she was not awkward, she was slow-flowing, graceful, seductive – a seductiveness that had nothing to do with breast and hips and legs, but was an invitation to forget the world in the recesses of the body

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.

The Odyssey is the story of motion both purposeful and purposeless, successful and futile. What else is the history of law?

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.

The more I suffer, the more I love.

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.

Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again.

The more I suffer, the more I love.

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.

The Odyssey is the story of motion both purposeful and purposeless, successful and futile. What else is the history of law?