Herta Müller quotes are thought-provoking, memorable and inspiring. From views on society and politics to thoughts on love and life, Herta Müller has a lot to say. In this list we present the 16 best Herta Müller quotes, in no particular order. Let yourself get inspired!
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Herta Müller quotes
At a time I used to think that in a world without guards people would walk differently from the way we do in our country. Where people are allowed to think and write differently, I thought, they will also walk differently.
— Herta Müller, The Land of Green Plums
Boredom is fear’s patience. Fear doesn’t want to exaggerate. Only on occasion–and fear considers this very important–does it want to know how things stand with me.
— Herta Müller, The Hunger Angel
Today the grass listens when I speak of love. It seems to me that this word isn’t honest even with itself.
— Herta Müller, The Land of Green Plums
How do you have to live, I wondered, to be in harmony with what you honestly think?
— Herta Müller, The Land of Green Plums
I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself using words. When I speak, I only pack myself a little differently.
— Herta Müller, The Hunger Angel
I’m always telling myself I don’t have many feelings. Even when something does affect me I’m only moderately moved. I almost never cry. It’s not that I’m stronger than the ones with teary eyes, I’m weaker. They have courage. When all you are is skin and bones, feelings are a brave thing. I’m more of a coward. The difference is minimal though, I just use my strength not to cry. When I do allow myself a feeling, I take the part that hurts and bandage it up with a story that doesn’t cry, that doesn’t dwell on homesickness.
— Herta Müller, The Hunger Angel
Jesus sleeps on the cross by the church door. When he wakes up, he’ll be old. The air in the village will be brighter than his naked skin.
— Herta Müller, The Passport
No words are adequate for the suffering caused by hunger. To this day I have to show hunger that I escaped his grasp. Ever since I stopped having to go hungry, I literally eat life itself. And when I eat, I am locked up inside the taste of eating. For sixty years, ever since I came back from the camp, I have been eating against starvation.
— Herta Müller, The Hunger Angel
The Russian commands sound like the name of the camp commandant. Shishtvanyanov: a gnashing and spluttering collection of ch, sh, tch, shch. We can’t understand the actual words, but we sense the contempt. You get used to contempt. After a while the commands just sound like a constant clearing of the throat—coughing, sneezing, nose blowing, hacking up mucus. Trudi Pelikan said: Russian is a language that’s caught a cold.
— Herta Müller, The Hunger Angel
Tereza’s death hurt me so much, it was as if I had two heads smashing into each other. One was full of mown love, the other of hate. I wanted the love to grow back. It grew like grass and straw, all mixed up together, and turned into an icy affirmation on my brow. That was my damn stupid plant.
— Herta Müller
Silence is also a form of speaking.
— Herta Müller
Lola writes in her notebook: Leaf-fleas are even worse. Someone said, They don’t bite people, because people don’t have leaves. Lola writes, When the sun is beating down, they bite everything, even the wind. And we all have leaves. Leaves fall off when you stop growing, because childhood is all gone. And they grow back when you shrivel up, because love is all gone. Leaves spring up at will, writes Lola, just like tall grass. Two or three children in the village don’t have any leaves, and those have a big childhood. A child like that is an only child, because it has a father and a mother who have been to school. The leaf-fleas turn older children into younger ones – a four-year-old into a three-year-old, a three-year-old into a one-year-old. Even a six-months-old, writes Lola, and even a newborn. And the more little brothers and sisters the leaf-fleas make, the smaller the childhood becomes.
— Herta Müller, The Land of Green Plums
Everyday brought me further away from other people, I had been placed out of the world’s sight, as if in a cupboard, and I hoped it would stay that way. I developed a yearning for being alone, unkempt, untended.
— Herta Müller, The Appointment
He’s looking into the night, in case a shadow comes to listen and look.
— Herta Müller, The Passport
To combat death you don’t need much of a life, just one that isn’t yet finished.
— Herta Müller, The Hunger Angel
Windisch closes his eyes. He feels his eyes. He feels his eyeballs in his hands. His eyes without a face.
— Herta Müller, The Passport
I was all too aware that there’s an unspoken law that you should never start to cry if you have too many reasons to do so. I told myself that my tears were due tot he cold, and I believed myself.
— Herta Müller, The Hunger Angel
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