Quotes from Ursula Hegi

These are thing, Trudi's father told her long before she was old enough for confession, that the church call sins, but they are part of being human. And those we need to embrace. The most important thing-- He paused. --is to be kind.

The cats were still there, dozens of them, the color of the cliffs, dozing in the sand beneath the bushes, invisible until they stirred or darted away. Waves came in high and crashed down like shelves overcrowded with books-abrupt and massive.

But Seehund hurled his love at her, his entire body. It was a love she recognized—she'd felt it within herself but had never been able to demonstrate it with such abandon.

And what she hated more than anything that moment was for all the differences between people to matter no more - no more differences in size and belief- differences that became justification for destruction.

He didn't know how to speak properly, how to walk properly, how to comb his hair, and she felt embarrassed for him as he shouted about restoring jobs and national honor, about a better and splendid Germany. The mob applauded, shouted. Did people really believe that he wanted what was best for Germany?

It was the kind of silence that fills you with light and makes you believe you can do anything you want.

She tends the fire Burning his letters. They turn black like thin mourning dresses. Yellow names, leaping; above them a blonde woman's hair on her bare shoulders. Red hollow glowing beneath. Illusion of passion. Like fragile layers of widow weeds, matted bluish, shiny, worn and buttons, yes, cheap buttons and words. Her fingers touch the smooth skin on her breasts. She tends the fire.

And yet, just because a story was a certain way didn't mean it would always be like that: stories took their old shape with them and fused it with the new shape. She didn't understand yet how all the tangles of their lives would sort themselves out in her story, but she supposed it would be like raking: not every bit of earth would be untangled at once.

It was like that with many other events, and it took courage for the few, who would preserve the texture of the truth, not to let its fibers slip beneath the web of silence and collusion which people—often with the best of intentions—spun to sustain and protect one another.

The risk her stories posed to others—and to herself—was more subtle. When she was younger, she had used secrets as if they were currency, but she'd found out how secrets could use her instead by becoming stronger than she. It happened whenever she couldn't stay away from a secret—drawn to it the way Georg Weiler was drawn to the bottle—though she sensed it would be better for her not to know.

And what to embrace.

Many of them couldn't fathom how Germany could have lost this war against the world, and they kept speculating about conspiracies and malicious forces that had brought about the shame of their defeat.

But not everyone looked away when injustices happened to others. When little Fienchen Blomberg was stoned in front of the Weilers' grocery store by six older boys, Frau Weiler let out a howl, grabbed her broom, and whipped from the store.

That's the nature of being a parent, Sabine has discovered. You'll love your children far more than you ever loved your parents, and -- in the recognition that your own children cannot fathom the depth of your love -- you come to understand the tragic, unrequited love of your own parents.

That's the nature of being a parent, Sabine has discovered. You'll love your children far more than you ever loved your parents, and -- in the recognition that your own children cannot fathom the depth of your love -- you come to understand the tragic, unrequited love of your own parents.

About endings....unless we do them well, we have to keep repeating them.

it only occurred to me much later that the summer I was fourteen I had saved a life--not the life of a stranger as I had imagined--but the life I had taken for granted and which, in the years to come, I would take for granted again.

Some acts of faith, I believe, have the power to grant us something infinitely wiser than we imagine

A perfectly happy marriage? There is no such thing. There are strong marriages that can survive problems, but happiness is such a brief condition, interrupted by difficulties and plain, boring routine.

And what she wanted more than anything that moment was for all the differences between people to matter no more - differences in size and race and belief....

What the river was showing her now was that she could flow beyond the brokenness, redeem herself, and fuse once more.

Marrying a woman who was reckless must have been the ultimate reckless act, requiring a lifetime of balancing to keep both of them safe

Everyone does it." "But no one talks about it," Gloria said. "About the different levels of skill involved. You have to practice before you become a great masturbator.

much of what the church calls sin is simply being human.