100 Quotes by Herta Müller

Es gibt keine passenden Wörter fürs Hungerleiden. Ich muss dem Hunger heute noch zeigen, dass ich ihm entkommen bin. Ich esse buchstäblich das Leben selbst, seit ich nicht mehr hungern muss. Ich bin eingesperrt in den Geschmack des Essens, wenn ich esse. Ich esse seit meiner Heimkehr aus dem Lager, seit sechzig Jahren, gegen das Verhungern.

Hunger is not an object.

Hunger is an object.

To combat death you don't need much of a life, just one that isn't yet finished.

No words are adequate for the suffering caused by hunger. To this day I have to show hunger that I escaped his grasp. Ever since I stopped having to go hungry, I literally eat life itself. And when I eat, I am locked up inside the taste of eating. For sixty years, ever since I came back from the camp, I have been eating against starvation.

Windisch closes his eyes. He feels his eyes. He feels his eyeballs in his hands. His eyes without a face.

In the trinity of skin, bones, and brown water, men and women lose all difference.

If only the right person would have to leave, everyone else would be able to stay in the country.

The cabbage white flies through the tailor's cheek. The tailor sinks his head. The cabbage white flies out of the back of the tailor's head, white and uncrumpled. Skinny Wilma flaps her handkerchief. The cabbage white flies through her forehead and into her head.