Bernhard Schlink Quotes

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving.

Inside Laila too a battle was being waged : guilt on one side, partnered with shame, and, on the other, the conviction that what she and Tariq had done was not sinful; that it had been natural, good, beautiful, even inevitable, spurred by the knowledge that they might never see each other again.

Guilt has always its horrors and solicitudes; and, to make it yet more shameful and detestable, it is doomed often to stand in awe of those to whom nothing could give influence or weight but their power of betraying.

Joys season'd high, and tasting strong of guilt.

Anger and hate against one we love steels our hearts, but contempt or pity leaves us silent and ashamed.

There's a lot of reasons you can think of to say why you act, but I can only say that it just felt good. At the same time, it felt really painful. It's still troubling and stressful to me.

Alas! how difficult it is not to betray one's guilt by one's looks.

I know who Jack Whittaker is. And some days I don't like who I am.

I am more depressed and troubled than I ever have been in my life. All my life I have been connected with the God-fearing people of this country…and I feel now that I have made a decision which will affront them and make them feel that I have betrayed them.

Instead of playing heroes and righteous people, I'd rather portray characters with problems of conscience who have to lie, to betray, and then have to cope with that. They feel more true to me.

My father wanted to be a hero. He went to the Air Force Academy, was valedictorian, and then he found himself strafing villagers in Vietnam in a war he didn't want to be in and didn't understand. He was extremely conflicted about the line where he went from being the good guy to possibly being the bad guy.

She hugged me and I could feel the heat rise in my face, either from shame or love, like there was a difference.

It is one of those problems of human nature, which may be noted down, but not solved; - although Ralph felt no remorse at that moment for his conduct towards the innocent, true-hearted girl; although his libertine clients had done precisely what he had expected, precisely what he most wished, and precisely what would tend most to his advantage, still he hated them for doing it, from the very bottom of his soul.

I am doing the right thing, he told himself, so why do I feel so bad?

I also felt guilty about the three pens I'd stolen, but only for a second. And since there was no convenient way to give them back, I stole a bottle of ink before I left.

Within my heart is lurking suspicion, and base fear, and shame and hate; but above all, tyrannous love sits throned, crowned with her graces, silent and in tears.

Even without them touching me, I feel dirty about what I do. Alex does even filthier things but says it all washes off with soap. I don’t believe that. I think it all leaves stains. Indelible stains.

Blushing, palpitations, a bad conscience--this is what you get if you haven't sinned.

He had been driven hither by the impulse of that Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose own sister and closely linked companion was that Cowardice which invariably drew him back, with her tremulous gripe, just when the other impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure.

Few love to hear the sins they love to act.

I didn’t know how I could live with that knowledge, without it eating me up, without it poisoning every happy memory I had of growing up. Without it ruining everything Beck and I had. I didn’t understand how someone could be both God and the devil. How the same person could destroy you and save you. When everything I was, good and bad, was knotted with threads of his making, how was I supposed to know whether to love or hate him?

It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands,' he answered. 'Kiss me again; and don’t let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer—but yours! How can I?

I don’t stand a chance if he doesn't get better. You’ll never be able to let him go. You’ll always feel wrong about being with me.” “The way I always felt wrong kissing him because of you,” I say. Gale holds my gaze. “If I thought that was true, I could almost live with the rest of it.

I enjoyed the innocence of unhappiness and of helplessness; could I blame myself for a sin which attracted me, which flooded me with pleasure precisely to the extent it brought me to despair?