Bernhard Schlink Quotes

She felt detached from her family, and thought it strange how they had lavished so much attention on her, as a child, and then at some appointed, prearranged time they seemed to stop the flow of affection and being the expectations - as if, for a brief phrase, you were expected to absorb love (and get enough), and then, for a much longer and more serious phase, you were expected to fulfill certain obligations.

My father is incapable of showing much affection, or even of carrying on a conversation. I didn't want to have a relationship with him just because he's my blood relative. It would bore me.

My relationship with my father is pretty non-existent.

My family - it wasn't an abusive family - they meant well, but they were in their own world.

I love my dog unconditionally, but never the man I'm sleeping with.

I cannot hate them because nothing binds me to them; I have nothing in common with them.

It might be better - more comfortable - to have a dog and two cats. All the love is focused on the cats and the dog. Am I right or wrong here? Have you seen it? At the end of this marriage, comes old age and loneliness.

I never seem to have anything that if I lost it I'd care too much about.

There are many families where the whole interest of life is centered upon the dog.

Sometimes the best way to get someone's attention is to stop giving them yours.

I guess you don't really own a dog, you rent them, and you have to be thankful that you had a long lease.

Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It's a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you owe them nothing.

Dogs serve people, but people serve cats.

People always want to compare their dogs to having kids. That's insulting. First of all, nobody has a dog because they were too drunk to pull out.

Jude's rule number five: Never get to close to anyone or anything that you can't walk away at a moment's notice if you have to. When you have to.

You enter into a certain amount of madness when you marry a person with pets.

I had always felt that I was an observer, never a participant; that I was watching from behind a thick glass wall as people went about the business of living--and did it with such ease, with a skill that they took for granted and that I had never known.

She wanted nothing that he could offer her, except perhaps his absence.

If you have reasons to love someone, you don’t love them.

When your children are teenagers, it's important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.

You have to develop a certain healthy distance to allow you to keep a clear head, to be able to analyse the situation, lead your team, and move forward with them, because there are times if I'm not careful... if you get too involved, it will consume you; it will consume you, and you will not be good to your team; the issues you are dealing with.

Hating someone is giving them too much, just leave them alone.

As my own father was sick, and miserably tied to his invalid's chair, he would have been abandoned had not an old servant performed for him a so-called service of love. My mother gave parties while he was perishing in solitude, and amused herself while he was suffering bitter agonies

A man who owns a dog is, in every sense of the words, its master; the term expresses accurately their mutual relations. But it is ridiculous when applied to the limited possession of a cat.