Anna Funder quotes are thought-provoking, memorable and inspiring. From views on society and politics to thoughts on love and life, Anna Funder has a lot to say. In this list we present the 20 best Anna Funder quotes, in no particular order. Let yourself get inspired!
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Anna Funder quotes
The cynic sees only cynicism, the depressive can taint creation with one glance
— Anna Funder
Why are some things easier to remember the more time has passed since they occurred?
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
I like trains. I like their rhythm, and I like the freedom of being suspended between two places, all anxieties of purpose taken care of: for this moment I know where I am going.
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
-“Forced love hurts God.” -“How can you hurt something that doesn’t exist?”-“At the end of our lives it is our loves we remember most because they are what shaped us. We have grown to be who we are around them, as around a stake.”- “I was once so open to the world it hurts”- “Act natural is the worst thing you can say to an actor. They simply forget how to be.”-“Until the first thing they learn are the last thing they forget.” -“It wasn’t just talking back to him, it was the confidence to be calm doing it.”-“The fact that the nation has gone to war does not make those who opposed it at the beginning, and those who oppose it now, traitors.”-“This beauty is a force, and it will never lose.”-“how a cause cements two people, masks their differences as secondary to the purpose at hand”-
— Anna Funder, All That I Am
People were crazy with pain and secrets.
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
He can switch from one view to another with frightening ease. I think it is a sign of being accustomed to such power that the truth does not matter because you cannot be contradicted.
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
Lately, a study has suggested that depressed people have a more accurate view of reality, though this accuracy is not worth a bean because it is depressing, and depressed people live shorter lives. Optimists and believers are happier and healthier in their unreal worlds.
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
one does not remember one’s own pain. It is the suffering of others that undoes us
— Anna Funder, All That I Am
For anyone to understand a regime like the GDR, the stories of ordinary people must be told. Not just the activists or the famous writers. You have to look at how normal people manage with such things in their pasts.
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
Most people have no imagination. If they could imagine the sufferings of others, they would not make them suffer so.
— Anna Funder, All That I Am
When I got out of prison, I was basically no longer human, ‘ Miriam says.
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
In this landI have made myself sick with silenceIn this landI have wandered, lostIn this landI hunkered down to seeWhat will become of me.In this landI held myself tightSo as not to scream.-But I did scream, so loudThat this land howled back at meAs hideouslyAs it builds its houses.In this landI have been sownOnly my head sticksDefiant, out of the earthBut one day it too will be mownMaking me, finallyOf this land.-Charlie’s poem
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
Prison left me with some strange little tics.’ She has taken all the door off their hinges in all the apartments she has lived in since. It’s not that she has anxiety attacks about small spaces, she says, it’s just that she starts to sweat and go cold. ‘This apartment is perfect for me, ‘ she says, looking around the open space.’How about elevators?’ I ask, recalling the schlepp up the stairs. ‘Exactly, ‘ she replies, ‘I don’t like them much either.’One day, years later, her husband Charlie was fooling around at home, playing the guitar. Miriam said something provocative and he stood up suddenly, lifting his arm to take off the guitar strap. He was probably just going to say ‘That’s outrageous’, or tickle her or tackle her. But she was gone. She was already down in the courtyard of the building. She does not remember getting down the stairs-it was an automatic flight reaction.
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
You see the mistakes of one system—the surveillance—and the mistakes of the other—the inequality—but there’s nothing you could have done in the one and nothing you can do now about the other. She laughs wryly. “And the clearer you see that, the worse you feel.
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
Ten days is time enough to die, to be born, to fall in love and to go mad. Ten days is a very long time.
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
My father was a doctor, ‘ she says, ‘a very kind man. He died in the early ’70s, relatively young.’ She taps the cigarette packet on the table. ‘Of lung cancer.”Oh.”But the thing about that is, ‘ she says as she exhales, ‘it doesn’t take very long at all.
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
Betrayal clearly has its own reward: the small deep human satisfaction of having one up on someone else. It is the psychology of the mistress, and this regime used it as fuel.
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
Miriam is upset. Her voice is stretched and I can’t look at her. Perhaps they beat something out of her she didn’t get back.
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
She is brave and strong and broken all at once. As she speaks it is as if her existence is no longer real to her in itself, more like a living epitaph to a life that was.
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
There are no people who are whole” he says. “Everyone has issues of their own to deal with. Mine might be a little harder, but the main thing is how on deals with them.
— Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
In my experience, it is entirely possible to watch something happen and not to see it at all.
— Anna Funder, All That I Am
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