Bernhard Schlink Quotes

Quotes about:

• I'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. 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

  Beautiful, Angel, Heaven

  FaceBook post by Bernhard Schlink from Aug 23, 2015

  47 Copy quote

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

  Bernhard Schlink

  Lying, Doe, Needs

  FaceBook post by Bernhard Schlink from Dec 22, 2013

  27 Copy quote

• Why? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? Why does the memory of years of happy marriage turn to gall when our partner is revealed to have had a lover all those years? Because such a situation makes it impossible to be happy? But we were happy! Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. Because happiness is only real if it lasts forever? Because things always end painfully if they contained pain, conscious or unconscious, all along? But what is unconscious, unrecognized pain?

  Bernhard Schlink

  Beautiful, Pain, Memories

  FaceBook post by Bernhard Schlink from Dec 31, 2013

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  FaceBook post by Bernhard Schlink from Jul 12, 2011

  11 Copy quote

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

  Bernhard Schlink

  Airplane, Flight, Failing

  FaceBook post by Bernhard Schlink from Nov 21, 2010

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  People, Monsters, Would Be

  FaceBook post by Bernhard Schlink from Aug 12, 2010

  11 Copy quote

• It was more dangerous not to go; I was running the risk of becoming trapped in my own fantasies. So I was doing the right thing by going. She would behave normally, I would behave normally, and everything would be normal again.

  Bernhard Schlink

  Running, Risk, Would Be

  Bernhard Schlink (2001). “The Reader”, p.19, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

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

  Bernhard Schlink

  Memories, Passion, Labyrinth

  Bernhard Schlink (2001). “The Reader”, p.18, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

• I thought that if the right time gets missed, if one has refused or been refused something for too long, it's too late, even if it is finally tackled with energy and received with joy. 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

  Long, Joy, Energy

  FaceBook post by Bernhard Schlink from Jun 30, 2010

  14 Copy quote

• The past has to be remembered, so that it's never repeated.

  Bernhard Schlink

  Past, Remembered

  Bernhard Schlink (2011). “Flights of Love”, p.74, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Want, Sometimes, Accepted

  "Bernhard Schlink: being German is a huge burden". Interview with Kate Connolly, www.theguardian.com. September 16, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• Does everyone feel this way? When I was young, I was perpetually overconfident or insecure. Either I felt completely useless, unattractive, and worthless, or that I was pretty much a success, and everything I did was bound to succeed. When I was confident, I could overcome the hardest challenges. But all it took was the smallest setback for me to be sure that I was utterly worthless. Regaining my self-confidence had nothing to do with success...whether I experienced it as a failure or triumph was utterly dependent on my mood.

  Bernhard Schlink

  Confidence, Insecure, Self

  Bernhard Schlink (2001). “The Reader”, p.67, Vintage

  19 Copy quote

• We make our own truths and lies....Truths are often lies and lies truths.

  Bernhard Schlink

  Lying, Truth And Lies, Lies Truth

  FaceBook post by Bernhard Schlink from Aug 10, 2010

  4 Copy quote

• The tectonic layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive. I understand this. Nonetheless, I sometimes find it hard to bear.

  Bernhard Schlink

  Events, Alive, Layers

  Bernhard Schlink (2001). “The Reader”, p.217, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• The more I suffer, the more I love.

  Bernhard Schlink

  Suffering, Reader

  "Fictional character: Michael Berg". "The Reader", www.imdb.com. 2008.

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Bernhard Schlink

  Seductive, Awkward, World

  FaceBook post by Bernhard Schlink from Feb 14, 2012

  7 Copy quote

• Now to escape involves not just running away, but arriving somewhere.

  Bernhard Schlink

  Running, Arriving, Running Away

  Bernhard Schlink (2001). “The Reader”, p.180, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• why does what was beautiful shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths?

  Bernhard Schlink

  Beautiful, Dark, Doe

  Bernhard Schlink (2001). “The Reader”, p.37, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Struggle, Victory, Retreat

  Bernhard Schlink (2001). “The Reader”, p.134, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

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

  Bernhard Schlink

  Successful, Law, Stories

  Bernhard Schlink (2001). “The Reader”, p.182, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• What should our second generation have done, what should it do with the knowledge of the horrors of the extermination of the Jews? We should not believe we can comprehend the incomprehensible, we may not compare the incomparable, we may not inquire because to inquire is to make the horrors an object of discussion, even if the horrors themselves are not questioned, instead of accepting them as something in the face of which we can only fall silent in revulsion, shame and guilt. Should we only fall silent in revulsion, shame and guilt? To what purpose?

  Bernhard Schlink

  Believe, Fall, Guilt

  Bernhard Schlink (2001). “The Reader”, p.104, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• 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. 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

  Hurt, Mistake, Apology

  Bernhard Schlink (2001). “The Reader”, p.49, Vintage

  6 Copy quote

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

  Bernhard Schlink

  Memories, Sometimes, Stay True

  Bernhard Schlink (2001). “The Reader”, p.37, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• Is this what sadness is all about? Is it what comes over us when beautiful memories shatter in hindsight because the remembered happiness fed not just on actual circumstances but on a promise that was not kept?

  Bernhard Schlink

  Beautiful, Memories, Sadness

  Bernhard Schlink (2011). “The Reader”, p.25, Hachette UK

  5 Copy quote

• It wasn't that I forgot Hanna. But at a certain point the memory of her stopped accompanying me wherever I went. She stayed behind, the way a city stays behind as a train pulls out of the station. It's there, somewhere behind you, and you could go back and make sure of it. But why should you?

  Bernhard Schlink

  Memories, Cities, Way

  FaceBook post by Bernhard Schlink from Jul 13, 2011

  4 Copy quote

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