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" I believe that literature always goes precisely there where the damage to a person has been done. "
Herta Muller
Literature
I Believe
Done
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" Suffering doesn't improve human beings, does it? "
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" If I don't belong because of what I think and because of my opinions, then so be it. What can one do about it? One can't bend over backwards or pretend to be someone else just to belong. And in any case, it doesn't work. Once you no longer belong, it's over. "
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Opinions
Someone
" As a child, I perceived my mother as an old woman. "
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Woman
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Child
" My mother tongue is German. "
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" Happiness may perhaps be shared. But not luck, sadly. "
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" Whatever I read went under my skin. I almost devoured the literature, which became like a road to discovery. "
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" Anything in literature, including memory, is second-hand. "
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Including
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" I learned Romanian very late, when I was fifteen, in town, and I wanted to learn it. I like the language very much. "
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Language
Learn
Much
" Through writing, one experiences something different to what one experiences with the five senses one has because language is a different metier. "
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Writing
Through
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" Working with language requires beauty for me. "
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Beauty
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" For me, each journey to Romania is also a journey into another time, in which I never knew which events in my life were coincidence and which were staged. This is why I have, in every public statement I have made, demanded access to the secret files kept on me which, under various pretexts, have invariably been denied me. "
Herta Muller
Me
Time
My Life
" In writing, one searches, and that is what keeps one writing, that one sees and experiences things from another angle entirely; one experiences oneself during the process of writing. "
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Things
Process
Experiences
" I speak a kind of Hapsburg language. "
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Kind
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" It was only against my mother's will that I attended the preparatory high school in the city. She wanted me to become a seamstress in the village. She knew that if I moved to the city, I would become corrupted. And I was. I started to read books. "
Herta Muller
City
School
Mother
" I find any kind of 'organizing' very difficult. And that has irksome consequences when it comes to books, since I've often wound up buying books twice because I couldn't find what I already have in all my mess. "
Herta Muller
Consequences
Organizing
Kind
" Romanian is a very beautiful, sensual, poetic language. "
Herta Muller
Sensual
Very
Beautiful
" One is either destroyed by adapting or for refusing to. "
Herta Muller
Either
Destroyed
Adapting
" The more words we are allowed to take, the freer we become. If our mouth is banned, then we attempt to assert ourselves through gestures, even objects. They are more difficult to interpret, and take time before they arouse suspicion. "
Herta Muller
Time
Mouth
Difficult
" We didn't have any books at home. Not even children's books or fairy tales. The only 'fantastic' stories came from religion class. And I took them all very literally, that God sees everything, and so I felt I was always being watched. Or that dead people were in Heaven right over our village. "
Herta Muller
Religion
Children
God
" I am a broken person. "
Herta Muller
Person
Am
I Am
" You can't build a future if you don't have a past. "
Herta Muller
Future
You
Past
" If you live with death threats, you need friends. So you have to risk that they might spy on you. "
Herta Muller
Live
Need
You
" Writing itself does not know what it looks like while one is doing it, only when it's finished. "
Herta Muller
Know
Doing
Only
" I write in order to bear witness to life. "
Herta Muller
Write
Order
Life
" What can't be said can be written. Because writing is a silent act, a labor from the head to the hand. "
Herta Muller
Labor
Silent
Writing
" If, in the very first pages, I'm forced to read gratuitous phrases or banal metaphors, I won't be able to get inside the story. Only if the sentences 'sparkle' can I get hooked. "
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Get
Inside
Only
" In Romanian society, I am not particularly well-liked. I don't often receive invitations. "
Herta Muller
Society
Particularly
I Am
" Ceausescu was mad, and he made half of Romania mad. I'm mad because of him. "
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Half
Because
Romania
" Literature speaks with everyone individually - it is personal property that stays inside our heads. And nothing speaks to us as forcefully as a book, which expects nothing in return other than that we think and feel. "
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Book
Literature
Think
" I never wanted to be a writer. "
Herta Muller
Never
Wanted
Writer