German Literature Quotes

The aphorism in which I am the first master among Germans, are the forms of 'eternity'; my ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book - what everyone else does not say in a book.

It's great that in the German language I've sold almost 30 million books. Isn't that amazing?

All Quiet on the Western Front.

Germany's fascinating. It's a really rich landscape to film and dramatise.

The instant you say All Quiet On The Western Front people remember that great 20th century classic book on war, a book about a school boy turned into a soldier overnight.

A German writer observes: "The noblest characters only show themselves in their real light. All others act comedy with their fellow-men even unto the grave.

I'm German! Actually, I love my countr, ;I love the language. The German language is very special because it is so precise. There is a word for everything. There are so many wonderful words that other languages don't have. It is impressive to have such a rich language, and I love to work in that language.

Sometimes when reading Goethe I have the paralyzing suspicion that he is trying to be funny.

Rainer Maria Rilke was admittedly not a Dockers tagger, but a sort of European equivalent: a German poet - in many respects, a charlatan masquerading as a genius who turned out to be a genius.

The Germans are incapable of any conception of greatness: proof Schumann.

German writers in the late 18th century were the first to uphold a prickly, literary nationalism, in reaction to the then dominance and prestige of French literature.

whenever the literary german dives into a sentence, this is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his atlantic with his verb in his mouth.

Faust: Who holds the devil, let him hold him well, He hardly will be caught a second time.

Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron 's struggle cease.

Except by name, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter is little known out of Germany. The only thing connected with him, we think, that has reached this country is his saying,-imported by Madame de Staël, and thankfully pocketed by most newspaper critics,-"Providence has given to the French the empire of the land; to the English that of the sea; to the Germans that of-the air!" Richter: German humorist & prose writer.

The books on my nightstand are so bizarre, very eclectic - like, every German author, and then I have a couple of books by this ex-boyfriend of mine there. I just want to make sure that he's not too much better than I am!

German has always felt the language that I come back to. It's given a very hard time by most people for being ugly and guttural. In fact, it's one of the most melodic, lyrical languages around. And German literature is amazing. It's just a treasury for me.

A friend of mine that I was in a band with started me on Kafka, which in turn led to Camus and Sartre.

The Germans call him 'Our Shakespeare' because we love him.

When I first began to combine letters other than Hebrew, I read every book in German that came my way, and from these I certainly received according to the nature of my soul.

Close thy Byron ; open thy Goethe .

Occasionally I write a small piece or the odd lecture in English, and I teach in English, but my fiction is always written in German.

Physician of the Iron Age, Goethe has done his pilgrimage. He took the suffering human race, He read each wound, each weakness clear -- And struck his finger on the place, And said -- Thou ailest here, and here.

More particularly, having a largely German-oriented education has made me very responsive to 19th-century German literature.

My father read Günter Grass. He introduced me to German literature. I believe the first book I read by a German author was from Grass. After that, Thomas Mann accompanied me for a few years during my literature studies. I tried again and again to read the original German text, but I never really succeeded.