“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.” — Herta Muller Copy Share Image
“And I’m different without you. You’re the only one who thinks you’re never different.” — Herta Müller Copy Share Image
“I wanted to work out a trade with things that aren’t alive but aren’t dead either. I wanted to make an emergency exchange, trading my body for the horizon line above and the dusty roads on the earth below. I wanted to borrow their endurance, exist without my body, and when the worst was over, slip back into my body… — Herta Müller Copy Share
My first book, 'Nadirs,' was very important for me. I'll leave its literary worth for others to judge. But its publication in Berlin in 1984 gave me protection. As did the awards it won. The Romanian secret police could no longer treat me and my friends as though we were completely cut off from the rest of the world. And… — Herta Muller Copy Share
“I'm drawn outside to the empty yard of the afternoon. The wind tosses thin snow that crackles against my neck. With open hunger the angel leads me to the garbage pile behind the mess hall. I stumble after him, trailing a little way behind, dangling from the roof of my mouth. Step after step, I follow my feet, assuming they… — Herta Müller Copy Share
“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… — Herta Müller Copy Share Image
“The reasaon I'm shy of objects is because I like them. I transfer the thoughts that are against me onto them. Then these thoughts go away, unless I talk about them - just like my wariness of people. Maybe it all collects in your hair. After I separated from my husband, in the quiet days when no one was shouting… — Herta Müller Copy Share
“The gym instructor was the first to raise his hand. All the other hands flew up after his. While raising their hands, everybody looked at the raised hands of the others. If someone's own hand wasn't as high as the others', he would stretch his arms a little farther. People kept their hands up until their fingers grew tired and… — Herta Müller Copy Share
I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself using words. When I speak, I… — Herta Muller Copy Share Image
To combat death you don't need much of a life, just one that isn't yet finished. — Herta Muller Copy Share Image
Some people speak and sing and walk and sit and sleep and silence their homesickness, for a long time, and to no avail. Some… — Herta Muller Copy Share Image
