51 Quotes by Christa Wolf

Resurrected from the dead. If miracles could happen, this was one of them; but we no longer knew the right way to accommodate a miracle. We hardly realized that a miracle can be met other than with broken phrases and mocking looks.

Every system of power in the world has a vested interest in weakening the individuality of its subjects and tries to weaken or it possible completely extinguish it.

Coldness in everything. It comes from a long way off; it gets into everything. One must get out of the way before it reaches the core. If it does that, one won't feel even the coldness any more. Do you see what I mean?

She is sensitive. She does not see the world as it is. She’s a bit up in the clouds. She cannot fit in.

Now writing is just working your way toward the border that the innermost secret draws around itself, and to cross that line would mean self-destruction. But writing is also an attempt to respect the borderline only for the truly innermost secret, and bit by bit to free the taboos around that core, difficult to admit as they are, from their prison of unspeakability. Not self-destruction but self-redemption. Not being afraid of unavoidable suffering.

The word 'catastrophe' is not permitted as long as there is danger of catastrophe turning to doom.

Era possibile, dunque, una cosa simile: voglia omicida e voglia d'amore in un solo uomo? Poteva essere tollerato ciò, tra esseri umani?

What is past is not dead; it is not even past. We cut ourselves off from it; we pretend to be strangers.

I ask myself what gives a person, what gave that woman, the right to confront us with decisions that we are not equal to making, decisions that tear us apart and leave us feeling inferior, incompetent, guilty.