Bernhard Schlink Quotes.

1. "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."
- Quote by Bernhard Schlink

2. "We make our own truths and lies....Truths are often lies and lies truths..."
- Quote by Bernhard Schlink

3. "Imagine someone is racing intentionally towards his own destruction and you can save him - do you go ahead and save him? Imagine there's an operation, and the patient is a drug user and the drugs are incompatible with the anesthetic, but the patient is ashamed of being an addict and does not want to tell the anesthesiologist - do you talk to the anesthesiologist? Imagine a trial and a defendant who will be convicted if he doesn't admit to being left handed - do you tell the judge what's going on? Imagine he's gay, and could not have committed the crime because he's gay, but is ashamed of being gay. It isn't a question of whether the defendant should be ashamed of being left-handed or gay --- just imagine that he is"
- Quote by Bernhard Schlink

4. "why does what was beautiful shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths?"
- Quote by Bernhard Schlink

5. "I know that disavowal is an unusal form of betrayal. From the outside it is impossible to tell if you are disowning someone or simply exercising discretion, being considerate, avoiding embarrassments and sources of irritation. But you, who are doing the disowning, you know what you're doing. And disavowal pulls the underpinnings away from a relationship just as surely as other more flamboyant types of betrayal."
- Quote by Bernhard Schlink

6. "Did my moral upbrining somehow turn against itself? If looking at someone with desire was as bad as satisfying the desire, if having an active fantasy was as bad as the act you were fantasizing- then why not the satisfaction and the act itself? As the days went on, I discovered that I couldn't stop thinking sinful thoughts. In which case I also wanted the sin itself."
- Quote by Bernhard Schlink

7. "When an airplane's engines fail, it is not the end of the flight."
- Quote by Bernhard Schlink

8. "She liked being alone, and she was alone a lot. When she met people, she often found them deeply strange, their behavior incomprehensible, their confidence unsettling."
- Quote by Bernhard Schlink

9. "Flucht ist hier nicht die Beschäftigung mit der Vergangenheit, sondern gerade die entschlossene Konzentration auf Gegenwart und Zukunft, die blind ist für das Erbe der Vergangenheit, von dem wir geprägt sind und mit dem wir leben müssen"
- Quote by Bernhard Schlink

10. "As I looked and looked, the living face became visible in the dead, the young in the old. This is what must happen to old married couples, I thought: the young man is preserved in the old one for her, the beauty and grace of the young woman stay fresh in the old one for him."
- Quote by Bernhard Schlink