Quotes from Christa Wolf

Between killing and dying there's a third way: live

Denn ich ohne Bücher bin nicht ich.

Every system of power in the world has a vested interest in weakening the individuality of its subjects and tries to weaken or it possible completely extinguish it.

The real question is: How sturdy and solid is the floor our civilization stands on? How many lives with no prospects, shattered and senseless, can it bear the weight of before it cracks somewhere or other, splits at the joints?

You love tenderly and warmly, but your love is like friendship. That's why you have good friends, you're sociable, sympathetic toward people. Until this dissatisfaction comes over you-you know what I'm talking about. Then you become moody, can even repulse people who are close to you, even people who love you, you know why. Those are bad times when everything goes cold, and they follow the times of great love...

A possession considered of little value up to now suddenly becomes precious to a person if another person desires it, don't you think?

She is sensitive. She does not see the world as it is. She's a bit up in the clouds. She cannot fit in.

I had gone back to being myself. But my self did not exist

What is past is not dead; it is not even past. We cut ourselves off from it; we pretend to be strangers.

Night thoughts have a different color than day thoughts, a different slant, more than anything else they know all the secret paths and chinks in the armor they can take advantage of to force their way into consciousness.

Wann - wenn nicht jetzt Wann soll man leben wenn nicht in der Zeit die einem gegeben ist

Wir können, was wir sehen, noch nicht glauben. Was wir schon glauben, nicht aussprechen.

I've known one thing for a long time: there's a role in the big machine even for someone who makes fun of it.

Now writing is just working your way toward the border that the innermost secret draws around itself, and to cross that line would mean self-destruction. But writing is also an attempt to respect the borderline only for the truly innermost secret, and bit by bit to free the taboos around that core, difficult to admit as they are, from their prison of unspeakability. Not self-destruction but self-redemption. Not being afraid of unavoidable suffering.

I did not like the thing in me which he had been able to seduce.

no lie is too obvious for the people to believe if it accommodates their secret wish to believe it.

Einmal, Mutter, in einer anderen Zeit, habe ich mit meinen beiden Händen zum Abschied deinen Kopf umspannt, seine Form ist als Abdruck in meinen Handflächen geblieben, auch Hände haben ein Gedächtnis.

Writing means making things large.

Per il dolore, la felicità, l'amore non ci sono segni. E questo mi sembra di rara infelicità.

Realist ist heute, wer auf dem Boden der Tatsachen steht - ein Boden, der in den Plänen dieser gleichen Realisten bereits verseucht ist.

I did not yet know that not to feel is never a step forward, scarcely a relief.

To become oneself, with all one's strength. Difficult. A bomb, a speech, a rifle shot -- and the world can look a different place. And then where is this self

Dammi un bacio" disse Rita. Stranamente commosso, Manfred avvolse il suo viso con le sue grandi mani calde e la baciò. "Stiamo bene insieme, noi due" disse lei piano, mentre si guardavano. "Le tue mani sono proprio fatte per me. E anche la bocca.

Einmal im Leben zur rechten Zeit sollte man an Unmögliches geglaubt haben.