Quotes from Herta Muller

I was all too aware that there's an unspoken law that you should never start to cry if you have too many reasons to do so. I told myself that my tears were due tot he cold, and I believed myself.

Ich schäme mich nicht, wenn ich sage, das Taschentuch war der einzige Mensch, der sich im Lager um mich kümmerte. Ich bin mir sicher, auch heute noch. Manchmal kriegen die Dinge eine Zartheit, eine monströse, die man von ihnen nicht erwartet.

In der Fabrik hing oben am Giebel, der am höchsten in den Himmel und am tiefsten in den Hof schaute, eine Losung: Proletarier aller Länder vereinigt euch. Und unten auf dem Boden gingen Schuhe, die das Land nur in der Flucht verlassen durften.

Man hat es leichter, wenn man selber weg muß, die Angst wegträgt, und das Glück da läßt, und vom anderen erwartet wird. Zu Hause sitzen und warten dehnt die Zeit zum Zerreißen und treibt die Angst auf die Spitze.

But everyone thought you were dead. You didn't write, that's why you're alive now.

Before the war an apple tree had stood behind the church. It was an apple tree that ate its own apples.

Mein Vater, sagte Georg, hat das Fahrrad zum Bahnhof mitgenommen, damit er auf dem Hinweg nicht so nahe neben mir gehen muss und auf dem Rückweg nicht an seinen Händen spürt, dass er allein nach Hause geht.

Jesus sleeps on the cross by the church door. When he wakes up, he'll be old. The air in the village will be brighter than his naked skin.

The cabbage white flies through the tailor's cheek. The tailor sinks his head. The cabbage white flies out of the back of the tailor's head, white and uncrumpled. Skinny Wilma flaps her handkerchief. The cabbage white flies through her forehead and into her head.

Je sais, dit Adina, les hommes avaient des femmes, les femmes avaient des enfants, les enfants avaient faim.

Es ist gar keine Katze, sagte ich mir, nur die Verpelzung der graugestreiften Langeweile, die Geduld der Angst in einer schmalen Straße.

Then you go on talking, about something you never actually mention. And your forehead and mouth are as far apart as they can be.

The Russian commands sound like the name of the camp commandant. Shishtvanyanov: a gnashing and spluttering collection of ch, sh, tch, shch. We can't understand the actual words, but we sense the contempt. You get used to contempt. After a while the commands just sound like a constant clearing of the throat—coughing, sneezing, nose blowing, hacking up mucus. Trudi Pelikan said: Russian is a language that's caught a cold.

Hunger is not an object.

Hunger is an object.

Todo lo que tengo lo llevo conmigo. O: todo lo mío lo llevo conmigo. He llevado todo lo que tenía. No era mío. Era o algo destinado a otras finalidades o de otra persona. […] Llevo un equipaje de silencio. Me he rodeado de un silencio tan hondo y duradero que nunca acierto a abrirme con las palabras. Cuando hablo, solamente me cierro de otra manera.

Every shift is a work of art.

Everything that happens is always simple. And there's a principle to how things proceed, assuming that they last.

In duminica in care Irene l-a cunoscut pe Thomas, aparuse doar apropierea dintre privirea Irenei, care cauta urzici, si camasa verde de matase a lui Thomas.

Irene mai avea o banuiala: ca-si tinea in cap dorul de-acasa mic, facut ghem,ca nu cumva sa-l recunoasca. Ca atunci cand aparea, il reprima.Si ca, pentru a-si sufoca simturile,aseza pe ele cladiri intregi din gandurile ei.

I do a lot of counting. Cigarette butts, trees, fence slats, clouds, or the number of paving stones between one phone pole and the next, the windows along the way to the bus stop in the morning, the pedestrians I see from the bus between one stop and the next, red ties on an afternoon in the city. How many steps from the office to the factory gate. I count to keep the world in order, I said. Paul

The balls were dry as wood, you had to lick and suck at them before they tasted like sour cherries. If you chewed them well, the pit felt very smooth and hot on the tongue. Those night cherries were a happy thing, but they only sharpened our hunger.

The hunger angel approached everyone, without restraint. He knew that where things can be unloaded, other things can be loaded. In terms of mathematics, the results could be horrifying: if each person has his own hunger angel, then every time someone dies, a hunger angel is released.

Everyone eats his words by himself although we're all eating together. There's no thought for the hunger of others, you can't hunger together. Cabbage soup was our main food, but it mainly took the meat from our bones and the sanity from our minds. The hunger angel ran around in hysterics. He lost all proportion, growing more in a single day than grass in an entire summer or snow in an entire winter.