Heinrich Boll Quotes & Sayings

Many writers are radical. I am not, because of my age and because of my terrible fear of demagogy. — Heinrich Boll

A family without a black sheep is not a typical family. — Heinrich Boll

For me, at least, much of the German I see and hear sounds stranger than Swedish, a language of which I unfortunately understand very little. — Heinrich Boll

I don't trust Catholics," I said, "because they take advantage of you."
"And Protestants?" he asked with a laugh.
"I loathe the way they fumble around with their consciences."
"And atheists?" He was still laughing.
"They bore me because all they ever talk about is God. — Heinrich Boll

Politicians, ideologists, theologians and philosophers try time and again to provide solutions with nothing remaining: prefab solved problems. — Heinrich Boll

On a visit to Cologne in March 1945, after a heavy bombing, I met hundreds and hundreds of deserters who were squatting in the rubble, many in the deep cellars left from Roman times. They had been hiding there after the retreat from France. — Heinrich Boll

A child ... never takes time off as a child; time off does not begin until the principles of order have been accepted. — Heinrich Boll

I am a clown...and I collect moments. — Heinrich Boll

For the outsider
and everyone in this world is an outsider in relation to everyone else
something always seems worse or better than it does for the one directly concerned, whether that something is good luck or bad luck, an unhappy love affair or an 'artistic decline'. — Heinrich Boll

My most interesting correspondence is with my translators. I marvel at their sensitivity over certain passages that just anyone, even if he knows German well, would not appreciate. — Heinrich Boll

We must learn, and especially we Germans, that resistance is not only possible and allowed in dictatorships. There is resistance that man must perform every day. — Heinrich Boll

The Nazi period could have happened only in Germany because the German education of obedience to any law and order was the main problem. — Heinrich Boll

Humor is really one of the hardest things to define, very hard. And it's very ambiguous. You have it, or you don't. You can't attain it. — Heinrich Boll

Feelings can kill such good hard things as love and hate. — Heinrich Boll

If the dead could speak there would be no more war. — Heinrich Boll

If you want to do something ... get up and actually do it! — Heinrich Boll

Now the Irish have a strange custom: whenever the name of County Mayo is spoken (whether in praise, blame, or non-committally, as soon as the world Mayo is spoken, the Irish add: 'God help us!" It sounds like the response in a litany: 'Lord, have mercy upon us! — Heinrich Boll

Medals don't suit me. I'm not that kind of guy. — Heinrich Boll

It's true and it's easily said that language is material, and something does materialise as one writes. — Heinrich Boll

I will never forget the moment when I was liberated by the American Army. I will never forget those very young boys coming up the hill, who had to take me a prisoner to liberate me. — Heinrich Boll

An artist is like a woman who can do nothing but love, and who succumbs to every stray male jackass. — Heinrich Boll

We divided the bar of chocolate and tried to console ourselves with Batman, but he was really a bad man. Not only, as the cover had promised, did he climb up the outsides of houses; one of his chief pleasures was evidently to frighten women in their sleep; he could also fly off through the air by spreading out his cloak, taking millions of dollars with him, and his deeds were described in an English such as is taught neither in Continental schools nor in the schools of England and Ireland; Batman was strong and terribly just, but hard, and toward the wicked he could even be cruel, for now and again he would bash in someone's teeth, a procedure fittingly rendered with the word "Screech." There was no comfort in Batman. — Heinrich Boll

One thing is certain, anyone who collects art is not an artist. — Heinrich Boll

The gorse was in bloom, the fuchsia hedges were already budding; wild green hills, mounds of peat; yes, Ireland is green, very green, but its green is not only the green of meadows, it is the green of moss - certainly here, beyond Roscommon, toward County Mayo - and Moss is the plant of resignation, of forsakenenness. The country is forsaken, it is being slowly but steadily depopulated... — Heinrich Boll

The war is not planned. I don't believe that any responsible person plans it. But it's thought as possible. — Heinrich Boll

I long for the time of no more departures. It has something to do with age, probably. — Heinrich Boll

I was born December 21, 1917, in Cologne, on the Rhine, the son of the sculptor and cabinet-maker, Viktor Boell, and his wife, Maria, nee Hermanns. — Heinrich Boll

One ought to go too far, in order to know how far one can go. — Heinrich Boll

Literature has its own life, even in a dictatorship like the Soviet Union. — Heinrich Boll

Because the completion of labour service was a precondition for permission to study at the university, I was able to begin my studies of Germanistics and Classical Philology during the summer term of 1939. — Heinrich Boll

The characters and action in this story are purely fictitious. Should the description of certain journalistic practices result in a resemblance to the practices of Bild-Zeitung, such resemblance is neither intentional, nor fortuitous, but unavoidable. — Heinrich Boll

To cling to the past is hypocrisy, because no one knows those moments. — Heinrich Boll

... she said she would not sign any deposition containing the word "amorous" instead of "advances". For her the difference was of crucial significance, and one of the reasons she had separated from her husband was that he had never been amorous but had consistently made advances. — Heinrich Boll

If Continental tea is like a faded yellow telegraph form, in these islands to the west of Ostend it has the dark, glimmering tones of Russian icons, before the milk gives it a color similar to the complexion of an overfed baby; on the Continent weak tea is served in fragile porcelain, here it is casually poured into thick earthenware cups from battered metal teapots, a heavenly brew to restore the traveler, dirt cheap too. — Heinrich Boll

Strangely enough I like the kind to which I belong: people. — Heinrich Boll

Have you read any book from "heinrich boll"?he is my faverit writer . what do u think about his books? — Heinrich Boll

I need very little reality. — Heinrich Boll

Between 1950 and 1951, I worked as a temporary employee in the Cologne Bureau of Statistics. From summer 1951 on, I have lived as a freelance writer with a fixed postal address in Cologne but with a continually shifting place of work. — Heinrich Boll

Behind every word a whole world is hidden that must be imagined. — Heinrich Boll

No one will ever know how many novels, poems, analyses, confessions, sufferings and joys have been piled up on this continent called Love, without it ever having turned out to be totally investigated. — Heinrich Boll

Oh, that ludicrous virile earnestness! — Heinrich Boll

As early as December 1945, I accompanied my wife and a few relatives in their return from evacuation in the countryside to Cologne, where over the years we settled down in a destroyed house. — Heinrich Boll

One would like to know, for most people, being denied reliable telepathic communication, reach for the phone, which they feel is more reliable. — Heinrich Boll

There are some strange unrecognized forms of prostitution with which prostitution itself is an honest trade: at least you get something for your money. — Heinrich Boll