Quotes from Hans Fallada

Wie kann man lachen, richtig lachen, in solcher Welt mit sanierten Wirtschaftsführern, die tausend Fehler gemacht haben, und kleinen, entwürdigten, zertretenen Leuten, die stets ihr Bestes taten?

He threw himself against the bars, he cared nothing that some swine beat his face till the blood came, he fought day after day with an enemy invisible to us, and day after day he took up the fight anew.

I swore that I would be better. But man gets used to anything, and I am afraid that perhaps he gets used quickest of all to living in a state of degradation.

I was not in any real difficulties yet; my affairs were merely going through a period of stagnation which could certainly have been overcome, at this stage, by the exercise of a little initiative. But I just couldn't summon up that initiative. I was too depressed by all the mute dislike of myself which I encountered at every twist and turn.

Nobody forced me to speak. Nobody? Ah yes, alcohol had made me do it. When once I had understood, when once I had realised to the full, what a liar alcohol is, and what liars it makes of honest men, I swore never to touch another drop and even to give up my occasional glass of beer. But what are resolutions, what are plans?

I felt incapable of making any such effort at the moment. For some reason I had been feeling rather low for nearly a year now. I was more and more inclined to let things go their own way and not excite myself too much. I was in need of rest—why, I do not know.

And here …," I took out a hundred-mark note and laid it beside the other. "This is for you because I hate you and because you're ruining me. Take it, take it. I don't want anything from you, anything at all! Go away!

Ja, es war gut, heimzukehren. Irrtümer, Gefahren, Versuchungen, Zeiten der Schwäche: sie blieben keinem erspart. Aber dann kehrte man heim in sein Haus, in sein Eigenstes, in die Heimat, in das, was man aus sich heraus geschaffen hatte, das zu einem Stück des eigenen Ichs geworden war, mochte es nun ein Haus sein oder eine Frau oder eine ganze Stadt.

Großmütig darf man nur zu einem großmütigen Feind sein, ein kleinlicher Feind hält Großmut immer für Schwäche.

?nsan? ayakta tutan ?ey umut olmal?. Ölmekte olan bir ki?inin kafas?ndan silinen son duygunun da umut oldu?unu san?yorum.

Nothing has any value but money. Money. But in point of fact money has no value; the greatest possible enjoyment has to be squeezed out of it moment by moment. Why save oneself up for tomorrow? Who knows where the dollar will stand, who knows whether we shall be still alive tomorrow?

he could do everything, but he did it in a brilliant offhand way, he was irresponsibility itself, nothing was durable.

A man whose wife has done everything he wishes for twenty years can never understand why she so suddenly changes. The woman who for twenty years has been silent, forgiving, smiling, patient, becomes in his eyes a rebel when in the twenty-first year she loses her patience and argues, accuses, demands explanations.Then she is a mutineer against whom every stratagem is permissible. Twenty years of patience have only given her the right to be patient also in the twenty-first.

Betrayed and deceived. Deceived and defrauded. But at once I shrug my shoulders: that's right! Lower and lower. Deeper and deeper into it. Now there's no holding back!

There's always something lacking for human happiness, we can never be perfectly content.

oh, how beautiful life is! Intoxication, forget-fulness, to float along on the stream of forgetfulness, into the twilight, deep into the darkness where there is neither failure nor regret … good alcohol, I salute you.

I was once again gripped by the old familiar passion; I wrote without looking up, nor did I look round either - neither to the left, nor to the right.

I was a failure, a failure of the most disgraceful and cowardly kind. The thought was unbearable, and I began to play with the idea of not returning home at all, but of going out into the world, of submerging myself in the darkness somewhere, in some darkness where a man might disappear without trace, without a final cry.

And when I have finished crying, the sun is still outside my window, the cool fragrant curtains sway in the gentle breeze. Life is still here, young and smiling. You can begin again at any time, it only depends on you.