Herta Müller

I am a broken person.

— Herta Muller

I speak a kind of Hapsburg language.

— Herta Muller

Who can take a single step with his head?

— Herta Muller

My mother tongue is German.

— Herta Muller

I never wanted to be a writer.

— Herta Muller

I write in order to bear witness to life.

— Herta Muller

Anything in literature, including memory, is second-hand,

— Herta Muller

Ceausescu was mad, and he made half of Romania mad. I'm mad because of him.

— Herta Muller

“Jak trzeba by żyć, myślałam, żeby pasować do tego co się akurat myśli.”

— Herta Müller

Suffering doesn't improve human beings, does it?

— Herta Muller

As a child, I perceived my mother as an old woman.

— Herta Muller

You can't build a future if you don't have a past.

— Herta Muller

“He's looking into the night, in case a shadow comes to listen and look.”

— Herta Müller

One is either destroyed by adapting or for refusing to.

— Herta Muller

“Today the grass listens when I speak of love. It seems to me that this word isn't honest even with itself.”

— Herta Müller

“Boredom is fear's patience. Fear doesn't want to exaggerate. Only on occasion--and fear considers this very important--does it want to know how…

— Herta Müller

I learned Romanian very late, when I was fifteen, in town, and I wanted to learn it. I like the language very…

— Herta Muller

Writing itself does not know what it looks like while one is doing it, only when it's finished.

— Herta Muller

“Nothing had anything to do with me. I was locked up inside myself and evicted from myself. I didn’t belong to them…

— Herta Müller

I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself using words. When I…

— Herta Muller

If only the right person would have to leave, everyone else would be able to stay in the country.

— Herta Muller

What can't be said can be written. Because writing is a silent act, a labor from the head to the hand.

— Herta Muller

If I don't belong because of what I think and because of my opinions, then so be it. What can one do…

— Herta Muller

“Now I was someone else. We knew each other in a way we no longer were and never would be again. Being…

— Herta Müller

It was only against my mother's will that I attended the preparatory high school in the city. She wanted me to become…

— 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…

— Herta Müller

“At a time I used to think that in a world without guards people would walk differently from the way we do…

— Herta Müller

We didn't have any books at home. Not even children's books or fairy tales. The only 'fantastic' stories came from religion class.…

— Herta Muller

“The hunger angel looks at me from the sky and says: Ride back. I say: But then I’ll die. If you die,…

— Herta Müller

“In der Fabrik hing oben am Giebel, der am höchsten in den Himmel und am tiefsten in den Hof schaute, eine Losung:…

— Herta Müller

“I wanted to work out a trade with things that aren’t alive but aren’t dead either. I wanted to make an emergency…

— Herta Müller

“Lola writes in her notebook: Leaf-fleas are even worse. Someone said, They don't bite people, because people don't have leaves. Lola writes,…

— Herta Müller

“The reasaon I'm shy of objects is because I like them. I transfer the thoughts that are against me onto them. Then…

— Herta Müller

“Windisch hears a leaf on the stones in the hallway. It's scratching on the stones. The wall is long and white. Windisch…

— Herta Müller

I'm always telling myself I don't have many feelings. Even when something does affect me I'm only moderately moved. I almost never…

— Herta Muller

“Even judges' children hear something about the world, they go to the Black Sea like everyone in the country. They look out…

— Herta Müller

“Occasionally a yellow leaf fell from the tree. Then one or the other of us would turn up his eyes as though…

— Herta Müller

“Hunger is an object. The angel has climbed into my brain. The angel doesn't think. He thinks straight. He's never absent. He…

— Herta Müller

“A noi si addice la paura della tenerezza”

— Herta Müller

Once upon a time they had some bad luck, and they blame everything on that.

— Herta Muller