Jan-Philipp Sendker Quotes

We wish to be loved as we ourselves would love. Any other way makes as uncomfortable. We respond with doubt and suspicion. We misinterpret the signs. We do not understand the language. We accuse. We assert that the other person does not love us. But perhaps he merely loves us in some idiosyncratic way that we fail to recognize.

I have often wondered what was the source of her beauty, her radiance. It's not the size of one's nose, the color of one's skin, the shape of one's lips or eyes that make one beautiful or ugly. So what is it? Can you, as a woman, tell me?
I shook my head.
I will tell you: It's love. Love makes us beautiful. Do you know a single person who loves and is loved, who is loved unconditionally and who, at the same time, is ugly? There's no need to ponder the question. There is no such person.

What do violent individuals fear most? Violence? I should say not! By what do the cruel and selfish feel most threatened? All of them fear nothing as much as they fear love.

Sometimes we must search afar to find what's close at hand.

THERE ARE MEMORIES we cannot escape. We take them with us wherever we go, however far, like it or not. They pursue us or accompany us in good times and in bad. We smell their scents. We hear their sounds. We delight in them or dread them. By day and by night. My

Life is a gift full of riddles in which suffering and happiness are inextricably intertwined. Any attempt to have one without the other was simply bound to fail.

Not all truths are explicable, Julia," he said. "And not all explicable things are true.

He seemed to think anyone was capable of anything, or at least he wouldn't exclude the possibility just because he thought he knew the person. And he insisted that this did not represent the worldview of an embittered pessimist. On the contrary, he had said. It would be much worse to expect good from other people, only to be disappointed when they didn't measure up to our high expectations. That would lead to resentment and contempt for humanity.

[He taught her] that life is interwoven with suffering. That in every life, without exception, illnesses are unavoidable. That we will age, and that we cannot elude death. These are the laws and conditions of human existence.

My bees cannot sting." "You mean they haven't stung anyone yet." "Is there a difference?" "What do you do with the honey?" "What honey?" "From the bees." U Ba looked at me. "I wouldn't touch it. It belongs to the bees.

Eyes and ears are not the problem ... It is rage that blinds and deafens us. Or fear. Envy, mistrust. The world contracts, gets all out of joint when you are angry or afraid.

We are responsible not only for what we do, but also for what we fail to do.

It is our own flaws that we are least ready to forgive in others.

Tin Win sat at an open window, his head buried in his hands. She called his name, but he did not react. With a shrill whistle blast, the engine started to move. Su Kyi walked along beside the window. The train picked up speed. The wheezing grew louder and stronger. She started to run. Stumbled. Bowled into a man, jumped over a basket of fruit. Then the platform came to an end. The two rear lights shone like tiger's eyes in the night. Slowly they vanished behind a gentle curve. When Su Kyi turned around the platform was empty.

She hoped Tin Win would learn what she had learned over the years: that there were wounds time does not heal, though it can reduce them to manageable size.

The essence of a thing is invisible to the eye, U May said. Learn to perceive the essence of a thing. Eyes are more likely to hinder you in that regard. They distract us. We love to be dazzled.

Fear blinds and deafens. Rage blinds and deafens. So, too, envy and suspicion. There was only one force stronger than fear.

Besides, I have no point of comparison," he declared, his eyes still closed. "That is the secret of a happy life.

There is nothing, for good or for evil, of which a person is incapable.

There are moments that we simply cannot endure. They transform us into someone else.

Laughter has many meanings here. We laugh when something is unpleasant. When we are afraid. When we are angry." "Is it a kind of

Life, U May told her, is a gift full of riddles in which suffering and happiness are inextricably intertwined. Any attempt to have one without the other was simply bound to fail. The monastery itself was surrounded

Yadana marveled at her daughter. Mi Mi knew that. She was proud of the strength and grace with which her Little Snail bore her handicap. And Mi Mi wanted to be strong, if sometimes only not to disappoint her mother. Yet she also longed for moments when she might be weak, when she need not prove anything to anyone. Not to her parents. Not to her brothers. Not to herself.

THERE must be in life something like a catastrophic turning point, when the world as we know it ceases to exist.

The master is mistaken: to live is to love.

Then the animals began to sing. First the crocodiles.
But crocodiles can't sing, I objected at this point every evening.
Sure they can, answers my father very quietly. Crocodiles sing, if only you let them. You just have to be quiet to hear them.

By how many people must we be loved in order to be happy? Two? Five? Ten? Or maybe only one? The one who gives us sight. Who takes away fear. Who breathes meaning into our existence. There

What do we know about our parents, and what do they know about us? And if we don't even know the individuals who have accompanied us since birth - we not them and they not us - then what do we know about anyone at all?Don't I have to imagine, from that perspective, that anyone is capable of anything, even the most heinous crime? On what or whom, on which truths, can one ultimately depend? Are there individuals I can trust unconditionally? Can there ever be such a person?

We believe that we see the world around us, and yet it is only the surface that we perceive.

Were there people who simply did not belong together? Who loved each other, but who were nevertheless happier when they were apart? Certainly

Heartbeat to the next. The moment when a lover confesses

She hoped that Tin Win would learn what she had learned over the years: that there are wounds time does not heal, though it can reduce them to a manageable size.

Every step we take leaves a trace.

I am not without you,
that you are with me from the moment I wake until the moment I fall asleep,
that it's you when the wind caresses me,
that it's your voice I hear in the silence,
you whom I see when I close my eyes,
you who make me laugh and sing when I know no one else is around.

Anyone who has been betrayed carries that betrayal inside himself. How

She was mystified by people who were always hurrying things along. A time of waiting offered moments, minutes, sometimes even hours of peace, of rest, during which, as a rule, she was alone with herself.

Hearts sounded different from person to person, betraying age or youth, joy, sorrow, fear, or courage, but that was all.

Yet she also longed for moments when she might be weak, when she need not prove anything to anyone.

How many times must we be loved in order to be happy?

Because we see only what we already know. We project our own capacities - for good as well as evil - onto the other person.

Can words sprout wings? Can they glide like butterflies through the air? Can they captivate us, carry us off into another world? Can they open the last secret chambers of our souls?

The true essence of things is invisible to the eyes ... Our sensory organs love to lead us astray, and eyes are the most deceptive of all. We rely too heavily on them. We believe that we see the world around us, and yet it is only the surface that we perceive. We must learn to divine the true nature of things, their substance, and the eyes are rather a hindrance than a help in that regard. They distract us. We love to be dazzled. A person who relies too heavily on his eyes neglects his other senses
and I mean more than his hearing or sense of smell. I'm talking about the organ within us for which we have no name. Let us call it the compass of the heart.

It's true I lost my eyesight many years ago. But that doesn't mean I'm blind.

He expected nothing more from life. Not because he was disappointed or embittered. He expected nothing because there was nothing of importance that he had not already experienced. He possessed all the happiness that a person could find. He loved and was loved. Unconditionally.

The fear of death is presumably a survival instinct, Tin Win later thought. It must be an essential part of us, of every living creature. At the same time, we must transcend it to take our leave in peace. He found this an irresolvable contradiction.

She had never witnessed such a symbiosis between two people, and there were moments when the sight of them made her wonder whether, in the end, a person maybe wasn't alone after all, whether in some cases, the smallest human unit was two rather than one.

Every life contains the seed of death, he had explained to Tin Win repeatedly in those first years of their friendship. Death, like birth, was a part of life that no one could escape. It was senseless to resist it. Far better to accept it as natural than to fear it.

In a sooty kettle. In one corner, orange-colored sodas were stacked in wooden crates. I had never been in such a wretched hovel.

Loneliness is the most severe punishment. We are not built to handle it. I

HOW THIN IS the wall between us and madness? No one knows what it is made

Themes so vast that only composers could even approach them. If at all. All other artists must practice humility before them.

And so there must be in life something like a catastrophic turning point, when the world as we know ceases to exist. A moment that transform us into a different person from one heartbeat to the next.

We often discover only many years later whether life and the stars were smiling upon us or not. Life can take the most surprising turns. What

To live means to suffer. Nothing is permanent.