129 Quotes by Bernhard Schlink

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

But love of our parents is the only love for which we are not responsible.

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?

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?

Imagine someone is racing intentionally towards his own destruction and you can save him – do you go ahead and save him?

You don’t have the power to upset me. You don’t matter enough to upset me.

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.

Sometimes I had the feeling that all of us in his family were like pets to him. The dog you take for a walk, the cat you play with and that curls up in your lap, purring, to be stroked – you can be fond of them, you can even need them to a certain extent, and nonetheless the whole thing – buying pet food, cleaning up the cat box, and trips to the vet – is really too much. Your life is elsewhere.

In spite of the fact that she pushed me away again and again, and again and again I crawled to her.