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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

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Bernhard Schlink
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: July 6
Judge
Jurist
Novelist
Poet Lawyer
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Made
Hide
Defeats
Always
Defeat
Frantic
Life
Victory
Struggled
Couldn
Victories
Struggle
Advances
Actually
Concealed
Show
Retreat
Shows
Struggling
Retreats

More quotes by Bernhard Schlink

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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.
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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?
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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.
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The tectonic layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive. I understand this. Nonetheless, I sometimes find it hard to bear.
Bernhard Schlink
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The past has to be remembered, so that it's never repeated.
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Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily.
Bernhard Schlink
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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.
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Philosophy has forgotten about children
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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.
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Now to escape involves not just running away, but arriving somewhere.
Bernhard Schlink
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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?
Bernhard Schlink
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why does what was beautiful shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths?
Bernhard Schlink
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Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again.
Bernhard Schlink
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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
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The Odyssey is the story of motion both purposeful and purposeless, successful and futile. What else is the history of law?
Bernhard Schlink
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Bravery is good when the cause is good.
Bernhard Schlink
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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