Bernhard Schlink Quotes

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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
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

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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

Thinking, Long, Feeling Sad

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

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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

Criminals, Guilty, Betray

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

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The more I suffer, the more I love.

Bernhard Schlink

Suffering, Reader

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

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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

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...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. 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, Parent, Done

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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.

Bernhard Schlink

Trying, Citizens, Married

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

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Born: July 6, 1944
Occupation: Writer
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