Bernhard Schlink quotes

Bernhard Schlink is a German writer and former judge, most famous for his bestselling novel "The Reader." His works often explore themes of guilt, memory, and justice in post-war Germany. He has earned international acclaim for his thought-provoking storytelling. Here are 23 of his quotes:

Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. (Bernhard Schlink)

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

We make our own truths and lies....Truths are often lies and lies truths.

Bernhard Schlink

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

Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again.

Bernhard Schlink

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

Now to escape involves not just running away, but arriving somewhere.

Bernhard Schlink

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

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

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

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)

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?

Bernhard Schlink

I asked her about life, and it was as if she rummaged around in a dusty chest to get me the answers.

Bernhard Schlink

In the past, I had particularly loved her smell. She always smelled freshed, freshly washed or of freshed laundry or fresh sweat or freshly loved.

Bernhard Schlink

As an author, you can't expect a movie to be an illustration of the book. If that's what you hope for, you shouldn't sell the rights.

Bernhard Schlink

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

Bernhard Schlink

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

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

There's this old saying that, if you aren't particularly gifted in natural sciences, if you don't want to become a teacher or pastor or doctor, and don't know what else to do, then you become a lawyer. But I've never regretted it.

Bernhard Schlink

As a citizen and someone who was a judge on the constitutional law court for 18 years, I feel whenever I can raise my voice with the hope of being heard I need to do it, but I wouldn't assign a special wisdom and responsibility to writers.

Bernhard Schlink

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)

I love writing, and I am never as happy as when I have a week, a month - three months - with nothing to do but write.

Bernhard Schlink

I know that I found it beautiful. But I cannot recapture it's beauty.

Bernhard Schlink

Bernhard Schlink

Bernhard Schlink - Image

Photo: Ps45md, CC BY-SA 4.0

Occupation: German Writer
Born: July 6, 1944
Quotes count: 23

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