Quotes by Bernhard Schlink

“But the finger I pointed at her turned back to me. I had loved her. Not only had I loved her, I had chosen her.”

“People ask all the time what I learned in the camps. But the camps werent therapy. What do you think these places were? Universities? We didnt go there to learn. One becomes very clear about these ...”

“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.”

“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 m...”

“Exploration! Exploring the past! We students in the camps seminar considered ourselves radical explorers. We tore open the windows and let in the air, the wind that finally whirled away the dust th...”

“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. Y...”

“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.”

“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...”

“Când ne deschidemtu mie şi eu ţie,când ne scufundămtu în mine şi eu în tine,când ne pierdemtu în mine şi eu în tine,Abia atuncieu sunt euşi tu eşti tu.”

“Being ill when you are a child or growing up is such an enchanted interlude! The outside world, the world of free time in the yard or the garden or on the street, is only a distant murmmur in the s...”

“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 ...”

“Is that what makes me sad? The eagerness and belief that filled me then and exacted a pledge from life that life could never fulfill?”

“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 e...”

“What 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?”

“It is as if people refused to leave their dead alone, forced them back into the light, made them keep their composure even in death.”

“But the finger I pointed at her turned back to me. I had loved her. Not only had I loved her, I had chosen her.”

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

“Bravery is good when the cause is good.”

“People ask all the time what I learned in the camps. But the camps weren’t therapy. What do you think these places were? Universities? We didn’t go there to learn. One becomes very clear about thes...”

“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 m...”