Quotes from Hans Fallada

And so it had been going on week after week. Month after month. That was what was so discouraging, that it went on so endlessly. Hadn't he once believed that it was all over? The worst thing was that it went on. And on, and on, with no end in sight.

Coffins and coffins, enough for everyone on the shift, enough for everyone in Germany! The men are still alive, but they are already making their own coffins.

We live not for ourselves, but for others. What we make of ourselves we make not for ourselves, but for others…

But she was haunted by the terrible memory of the time they had once before dragged a man out of her flat, and out of her life. Her anxiety wouldn't permit it, she had to go out and check.

An aging woman, an older man needy as a child, a little comfort, a little passion, a small aura round her beloved's head—and it never occurs to Fräulein Hetty to wonder how this weepy, feeble creature could possibly be the fighter and hero of her imaginings.

Pech ist heute nur noch die Würze des Glücks!

Even death row speaks, breathes, lives. Even on death row, the deep-seated urge to communicate cannot be extinguished.

In other words, the Quangels were like most people: they believed what they hoped.

Es ist egal, ob nur einer kämpft oder zehntausend; wenn der eine merkt, er muss kämpfen, so kämpft er, ob er Mitkämpfer hat oder nicht. Ich habe kämpfen müssen und ich würde es immer wieder tun.

E che cosa ce ne faremo della ricchezza? La posso mangiare? Dormirò meglio quando sarò ricco? Non andrò forse più in fabbrica, e che cosa farò tutto il giorno? No, Borkhausen, io non voglio diventare ricco e in questo modo, poi, certamente no. Una simile ricchezza non vale neanche un morto.

All was darkness, and she had been full of fear and apprehension, and then the sun had peeped through the clouds once more.

I am utterly alone with myself, I see clearly that from now on I shall always be utterly alone with myself. I am somewhere where neither love nor friendship can reach, I am in hell … I have sinned for a brief while and I am being punished for it, incredibly severely, for a long time! But one should have known, before one sinned, how severe the punishment would be. One should have been warned beforehand, then one would not have sinned …

The preposterous comedy of this gang of criminals branding everyone else as criminals was suddenly too much for him to take.

Qu'un seul être souffre injustement, et que, pouvant y changer quelque chose, je ne le fasse pas, parce que je suis lâche et que j'aime trop ma tranquillité...

It doesn't matter if there's a handful of you against many of them. Once you've seen that a cause is right, you're obliged to fight for it. Whether you ever live to see success, or the person who steps into your shoes does, it doesn't matter.

And while I walked out again into the countryside, which was slowly growing darker and darker, it became painfully clear to me that I was played out. I had nothing left to live for, I had lost my footing in society, and I felt I had not the strength to look for a new one, nor to fight to regain the old.

Had I lost love and appreciation because I had grown so bad, or had I grown so bad because I had lost its encouragement?

Only a short time before I had felt like a convalescent, and had greeted the familiar things around me with fresh interest, convinced that today a new life was beginning … and now the old creaking mill of our dissension was starting up again, grinding all my good resolutions to dust.

And then she cries some more, and finally she finds sleep, as one always eventually finds sleep, after toothache and after childbirth, after a fight and after a rare joy.

O]b wenig oder viel, niemand konnte mehr als sein Leben wagen. Jeder nach seinen Kräften und Anlagen – die Hauptsache: man widerstand.

Oh, but childhoods go by so quickly too, we have them for such a short time - six years? Ten at the most? We are so alone in this life.

I had already forgotten all that had happened and all that lay ahead, I lived only for the moment, for this reserved yet knowing girl who treated me with such obvious contempt.

Er ist wieder gesund, er spürt Arbeitslust in sich, er glaubt an seine Zukunft. Und man kann nicht an die eigene Zukunft glauben, ohne an die Seinen, den näheren Kreis, das ganze Volk, ohne an die Menschheit zu denken. Er glaubt an das Weiterbestehen, an das Wiederhochkommen Europas, weil er an das eigene Wiederhochkommen glaubt.

I took the bottle and poured another drink. Already it was quite clear to me that I was completely drunk and that I should not take any more. Even so, the urge to go on drinking was stronger. The coloured web in my brain enticed me, the dark untrodden jungles of my inner self tempted me; from afar, a soft seductive voice was calling.