Цитаты из книг — Курт Тухольский

When you move, your worries follow you. If you’re only staying somewhere for four weeks, you can laugh at everything – even the little unpleasantnesses. They don’t concern you. If you stay there forever, though, you have to be involved. ‘It’s beautiful here,’ Charles V said once to a prior whose monastery he was visiting.…

She looked about herself. Everything here, down to the plaster on the walls, the putty in the window-frames, the lino floor and the door-hinges – everything was counted, checked, listed and supervised. There was nothing here that was not subject to her rule. She felt that if she glared at the fireplace, the fire would…

But that was not all. The atavistic drive of mankind was rampant in her: for power, power, power. Nothing hurts such a creature more than an unexpected rebellion. A world collapses. Spartacus . . . So many children were suffering here. I could have hit her. She shrank away.

And now I was a strange man going to a wicked, strange woman. I quickly played through the different scenarios of Hansel and the witch; ‘but I’m so shy’ . . . and then I recovered. It took much less time to happen than to write. It was over. A wise Indian said, ‘You have to kill the tiger in your mind, before the hunt–the…

‘I mean they’re always so terribly chic. Even when they write about being broke, they tell a stylish version of it. They seem to have both feet off the ground. Will a newspaper ever talk about what it’s really like: how you start scrimping on the twentieth of each month, how things get miserable and petty sometimes, how…

We were in the middle of our holidays. Swimming in the lake; lying naked on the shore, in a sheltered spot; soaking up the sun, so that you rolled home at noon, wonderfully dozy, and drunk on the light, the air and the water; quiet; eating; drinking; sleeping; resting – holiday.

She was so alone here. Quite alone among the other thirty-nine girls, and she was afraid. Her life consisted of nothing but fear. Fear of the Limb of Satan and of the older girls, who would tell on her whenever they could, fear of the next day and of the day before, from which things might come to light. Fear of…

The customs. A man entered the compartment and politely enquired whether we . . . and we said no, we hadn’t. And then he went away again. “Can you see the point of that?’ asked Lydia. ‘I can’t,’ I said, ‘it’s just a game and a religion, the cult of the fatherland, which happens to be a blind spot of mine. I mean, look –…

It’s funny, isn’t it,’ I said. ‘When people think about Sweden, they think: Swedish punch, awfully cold, Ivar Kreuger, match-boxes, awfully cold, blonde women and awfully cold. It’s not that cold at all.’

We had thought we could escape time. But you can’t, it follows you. I looked at the Princess and pointed at the newspaper, and she nodded. We had talked about it the night before; about newspapers, about time in general, and about this time. One often thinks love is stronger than time; but time is always stronger than love.…

‘First of all,’ I said, ‘I saw how it was. And then I understood why it was like that – and then I appreciated why it couldn’t be any other way. But I still want it to be different. It’s a trial of strength. If you can remain true to yourself . . .’

‘And in what way is he mean?’ ‘That must be genetic – I think generations must have contributed to it. It can’t be the work of just one man. If his best friend wanted to do him a favour, he would have to break his leg on my boss’s birthday. I’ve never seen anything like it. He really looks for opportunities to rejoice at…

We let the wind blow over us some more, and said nothing. It’s nice to have someone you can share a silence with.

The Princess didn’t drink red wine much. Instead – and she was the only woman I’ve ever met who did – she liked whisky. Most women say it tastes just like a dentist’s mouthwash, but if it’s good whisky, it tastes of smoke.

Missingsch is what comes out when a Platt German from the North wants to speak proper High German. It slithers about on the carefully wax-polished stairs of German grammar, before falling flat on its face in its beloved Platt.

Neither of us suffered from that peculiar disease of finding yourself at a station and suddenly buying a couple of pounds of newsprint, when you can be pretty sure in advance it will be tripe. And so we got the papers.

The bait of 14% of copies without royalties isn’t tasty enough: 12% would be more tempting. Just think about that for a bit, and give your hard publisher’s heart a little nudge. I can’t guarantee inspiration at 14% – the Muse starts at 12%.

Manchmal war sie wie eine fremde Frau, und in diese fremde Frau verliebte ich mich immer aufs neue und musste sie immer aufs neue erobern. Wie weit ist es von einem Mann zu einer Frau! Aber das ist schoen, in eine Frau wie in ein Meer zu tauchen. Nicht denken... Viele von ihnen haben Brillen auf, sie haben es in…