“To investigate how one makes the transition from a full, readily comprehensible existence to the life of a refugee, which is open in all directions — drafty, as it were — he has to know what was at the beginning,… — Jenny Erpenbeck Copy Share Image
“He can’t remember, but he still knows exactly where to find it on his bookshelf, books are willing to wait, he says whenever visitors… — Jenny Erpenbeck Copy Share Image
“This here is your inheritance, says the senior partner. Yes, he says, Ludwig, I know, and stows the plan for the bathing house (5.5m… — Jenny Erpenbeck Copy Share Image
“Have the people living here under untroubled circumstances and at so great a distance from the wars of others been afflicted with a poverty… — Jenny Erpenbeck Copy Share Image
“Home. When it rains, you can smell the leaves in the forest and the sand. It's all so small and mild, the landscape surrounding… — Jenny Erpenbeck Copy Share Image
“Quante volte bisogna tornare a imparare, a scoprire e a riscoprire ciò che già si sa, quanti travestimenti bisogna strappar via per poter penetrare… — Jenny Erpenbeck Copy Share Image
Nothing is nicer than diving with your eyes open. Diving down as far as the shimmering legs of your mother and father who have… — Jenny Erpenbeck Copy Share Image
“Home! he'd cried out like a child that would give anything not to be seeing what it was seeing, but precisely in this one… — Jenny Erpenbeck Copy Share Image
“How many times, he wonders, must a person relearn everything he knows, rediscovering it over and over, and how many coverings must be torn… — Jenny Erpenbeck Copy Share Image
Everything had kept getting less, they'd had to leave behind more and more baggage, or else it was taken from them, as though they… — Jenny Erpenbeck Copy Share Image
“The Wall had turned their street into a cul-de-sac where children roller-skated. Then in 1990 the Wall was cleared away piece by piece, and… — Jenny Erpenbeck Copy Share Image
Which means that in the end there are certain things you can take with you when you flee, things that have no weight, such… — Jenny Erpenbeck Copy Share Image
“...but with each step you take while fleeing, your baggage grows less and less, with more and more left behind, and sooner or later… — Jenny Erpenbeck Copy Share Image
