What can be said about chronic hunger. Perhaps that there's a hunger that can make you sick with hunger. That it comes in addition to the hunger you already feel. That there is a hunger which is always new, which grows insatiably, which pounces on the never-ending old hunger that already took such effort to tame. How can you face the world if all you can say about yourself is that you're hungry.

Herta Muller

Categorized in : Faces Sick Effort

What can't be said can be written. Because writing is a silent act, a labor from the head to the hand.

Herta Muller

silent writing hands

Suffering doesn't improve human beings, does it?

Herta Muller

humans suffering doe

Women always need other women to lean on. They become friends in order to hate each other better. The more they hate each other, the more inseparable they become.

Herta Muller

hate order needs

To combat death you don't need much of a life, just one that isn't yet finished.

Herta Muller

just-one combat needs

Anything in literature, including memory, is second-hand.

Herta Muller

literature memories hands

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 Muller

everyday sight people

Language is so different from life. How am I supposed to fit the one into the other? How can I bring them together?

Herta Muller

different language together

Some people speak and sing and walk and sit and sleep and silence their homesickness, for a long time, and to no avail. Some say that over time homesickness loses its specific content, that it starts to smolder and only then becomes all-consuming, because it’s no longer focused on a concrete home. I am one of the people who say that.

Herta Muller

home sleep long

In this county, we had to walk, eat, sleep and love in fear.

Herta Muller

and-love fear sleep

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 Muller

differences eye hurt

Once upon a time they had some bad luck, and they blame everything on that.

Herta Muller

blame luck once-upon-a-time

I wanted to get out of our thimble of a town, where every stone had eyes.

Herta Muller

towns eye stones

In Romanian society, I am not particularly well-liked. I don't often receive invitations.

Herta Muller

invitations wells

I have always written only for myself - to clarify things, to clarify things with myself, to understand in an inner way what is actually happening.

Herta Muller

happenings written way

Who can take a single step with his head?

Herta Muller

single-step action steps

Writing itself does not know what it looks like while one is doing it, only when it's finished.

Herta Muller

doe writing looks

If you live with death threats, you need friends. So you have to risk that they might spy on you.

Herta Muller

spy risk needs

If only the right person would have to leave, everyone else would be able to stay in the country.

Herta Muller

able would-be country

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 Muller

silence littles long

My flesh was burning where the skin was scraped off my knees, and I was afraid that I couldn't be alive anymore with so much pain, and at the same time I knew I was alive because it hurt. I was afraid that death would find its way into me through this open knee and I quickly covered my knee with my hands.

Herta Muller

pain hurt hands