Heym Quotes & Sayings

You had censorship. If you brought a manuscript to the publisher, you knew he would suggest changes. If you wanted to write and speak what you thought had to be written and spoken, you had to act against all these suppressive rules. — Stefan Heym

The idea of a socialism with a human face was something that I absolutely could support, because it was my idea from the very first. — Stefan Heym

You must have, if socialism was to succeed, a socialism with lots of democratic elements in it. — Stefan Heym

And also, of course, I knew that the German people, they're one, and would tend to consider themselves as one; and therefore they would consider the Wall as an enforced imprisonment. And I was right in thinking that way. — Stefan Heym

Today, when we live in a what is called Western democracy here ... you're not taken seriously all the time. You can write what you want because nobody cares about it. But at that time, they cared very much about what you wrote, so that's an entirely different feeling. — Stefan Heym

In the question of peace, people spoke up and demonstrated for peace and against the threat of war, the threat of atomic war. — Stefan Heym

A great number of people in the East German parts had been Nazis, so the change of mind was not altogether there. — Stefan Heym

A Western writer came up to me and said, how come nobody at this demonstration spoke of German unity? I told him, because it isn't on the agenda. People were interested in having another, better GDR, another, better socialism. — Stefan Heym

People in the East looked toward the West with longing. They would have liked to have the same comforts, the same goods, the same chances. They saw a system that demanded of them sacrifices with nothing but promises for the future. — Stefan Heym

And of course, in West Germany, they made every effort that people who came from the East would get jobs and would get a comfortable existence. That was part of the Cold War - and part of the winning side of the Cold War. — Stefan Heym

We certainly hoped perestroika would win out and that there would be changes. We knew all along that socialism could flourish only with a certain amount of freedom and democracy. — Stefan Heym

If you live in a system that is suppressive, you don't walk upright, you always go with your head down. — Stefan Heym

People who were not active in the intellectual life of the country could go on without feeling restricted, except they could not go where they wanted. They could not cross the border to the West whenever they liked. — Stefan Heym

I was emotionally erect. — Sherman Alexie

I balance family and career by doing what makes me the happiest! That for me, without question, is putting my family and kids first. — Bridgette Wilson

The Wall was the actual symbol of a defeat, of inferiority. — Stefan Heym

I was in psychological warfare in World War II, so I know psychological warfare when I see it. — Stefan Heym

Science is just as important as magic. — Donna Grant

I disapproved of the fact that the government here refused to adopt the few reforms that Gorbachev put over in the field of media and the field of culture. — Stefan Heym

I not only saw the possibility of nuclear war, I feared it very much. If they started a military conflagration, it would automatically lead to nuclear warfare. — Stefan Heym

I did not oppose unification, I knew unification would have to come, but not in the form in which it did come. There were two ways of doing it and they took it the radical way, the forceful way. — Stefan Heym

If we had had time and the occasion to develop a new socialism in the GDR, socialism with a human face, with democracy, this might have been an example also to West Germany. The development would have run the other way. — Stefan Heym

Success begins with a fellow's will - It's all in the state of mind. — Napoleon Hill

If the greenhouse effect is a blanket in which we wrap ourselves to keep warm, nuclear winter kicks the blanket off. — Carl Sagan

Anxiety prepares the organism badly for an ordeal which even under more favorable circumstances would not be an easy thing to bear. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

These were the things that the government supplied you with - in turn, of course, demanding obedience. But you must not imagine that it was a constant feeling of outrage that was in the minds of people and the hearts of people. — Stefan Heym

Poland remains undzer heym, our home, no matter how bitter the memories, how filled with disappointment and betrayal. Amerike iz goles, America is exile, a foreign land in which I speak a foreign tongue. But I will never live in Poland. I do not want to, though I do not see an end to the mourning. — Irena Klepfisz

Show me one place where a whole government is concerned with a book of a writer and is concerned enough to suppress it. — Stefan Heym

People made no sense to her. Men, with whom she had everything in common, did not want her around. Women, with whom she had nothing in common, smiled too much, laughed too loud, and mostly reminded her of small dogs, their lives lost in interior decorating and other people's outfits. There had never been a place for a person like her. — Philipp Meyer

In the Pretty Woman shopping scene, it's not really about the clothes, or how much they cost, or how great she looks. When Vivian leaves the store, she's not only a pretty woman, she's a different woman. It gets me every time. — Victoria Van Tiem

A foreman in the East wouldn't know how many workers he would have the next day, because part of his working force had left the system to go to West Germany. — Stefan Heym

For years I viewed my interaction with the Bible as a debit account: I had a need, so I went to the Bible to withdraw an answer. But we do much better to view our interaction with the Bible as a savings account: I stretch my understanding daily, I deposit what I glean, and I patiently wait for it to accumulate in value, knowing that one day I will need to draw on it. — Jen Wilkin

Even in West Germany in the beginning, people wanted a kind of socialism. — Stefan Heym

I certainly hoped that in the Eastern part of Germany, what was just beginning to be called the German Democratic Republic, you would develop a system of socialism with freedom and democracy. — Stefan Heym

And one of the worst effects was that by suppressing critical thought, it also suppressed critical thought in the field of economics and hampered the development of economics - and the country would fall back further and further in the economic competition with the West. — Stefan Heym

There are times when I can find myself in a book, too, for two or three hours. But afterward I have such an urge to go out and reach for other people. Very often they're not around. There's also a metaphysical loneliness. We all feel it. The burden of living one's own life is experiencing sensations that no one else can share. You take a step in a house, you start moving around the house, no one else moves with you. You're walking by yourself. — David Ignatow

I defended myself at the first opportunity I had, which was a meeting of writers in which I proved that Honecker had based his whole attack. — Stefan Heym