Go, Went, Gone Quotes

“How many times, he wonders, must a person relearn everything he knows, rediscovering it over and over, and how many coverings must be torn away before he's finally able to truly grasp things, to understand them to the bone? Is a human lifetime long enough? His lifetime, or anyone else's?”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen

“Wie oft wohl muss einer das, was er weiß, noch einmal lernen, wieder und wieder entdecken, wie viele Verkleidungen abreißen, bis er Dinge wirklich versteht bis auf die Knochen? Reicht überhaupt eine Lebenszeit dafür aus?”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen

“Have the people living here under untroubled circumstances and at so great a distance from the wars of others been afflicted with a poverty of experience, a sort of emotional anemia? Must living in peace - so fervently wished for throughout human history and yet enjoyed in only a few parts of the world - inevitably result in refusing to share it with those seeking refuge, defending it instead so aggressively that it almost looks like war?”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen

“To understand what a person means or says, it’s basically necessary to already know what that person means or is saying.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“Sich vom Wünschen zu verabschieden, ist im Alter wahrscheinlich das, was man am schwersten lernt.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen

“The more highly developed a society is, the more its written laws come to replace common sense. In Germany, I estimate that only two-thirds of our laws are still anchored in the emotional lives of the people, as it were. The other third are laws pure and simple, formulated with such a high level of precision and abstraction that all basis in human emotion has become superfluous and thus ceases to exist.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“there’s no better way to make history disappear than to unleash money, money roaming free has a worse bite than an attack dog, it can effortlessly bite an entire building out of existence,”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“For a long time the old man and this young man sit there side by side at the desk, watching and listening as these three musicians use the black and white keys to tell stories that have nothing at all to do with keys’ colors.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“Of course he's always know that the Odyssey and the Illiad are stories that were passed on orally long before Homer - or whoever it was - wrote them down. But never before has the connection between space, time, and words revealed itself so clearly as at this moment. The bad drop of the desert shows it off in sharp relief, but really it's always just the same all over the world: without memory, man is nothing more than a bit of flesh on the planet's surface.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“But if this prosperity couldn’t be attributed to their own personal merit, then by the same token the refugees weren’t to blame for their reduced circumstances. Things might have turned out the other way around. For a moment, this thought opens its jaws wide, displaying its frightening teeth.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen

“Learning to stop wanting things is probably one of the most difficult lessons of getting old.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“Peter told him that for the Incas the center of the universe wasn’t a point but a line where the two halves of the universe meet. Is this the scene unfolding before Richard’s eyes at the entrance to the asylum seekers’ residence? And are the two groups of people facing off here something like the two halves of a universe that actually belong together, but whose separation is nonetheless irrevocable? Is the rift dividing them in fact a bottomless chasm; is that why such powerful turbulences have been released? And is it a rift between Black and White? Or Poor and Rich? Stranger and Friend? Or between those whose fathers have died and those whose fathers are still alive? Or those with curly hair and those with straight? Those who call their dinner fufu and those who call it stew? Or those who like to wear yellow, red, and green t-shirts and those who prefer neckties? Or those who like to drink water and those who prefer beer? Or between speakers of one language and another? How many borders exist within a single universe?”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“The Wall had turned their street into a cul-de-sac where children roller-skated. Then in 1990 the Wall was cleared away piece by piece, and each time a new crossing point was opened, a crowd of emotional West Berliners punctually gathered, eager to bid a warm welcome to their brothers and sisters from the East. One morning, he himself became the object of these tearful welcomes: the East Berliner who’d lived on this street that had been cut in half for twenty-nine years, crossing over on his way to freedom. But he hadn’t been on his way to freedom that morning, he was only trying to get to the University, punctually taking advantage of the S-Bahn station at the western end of his newly opened street. Unemotional and in a hurry, he’d used his elbows to fight his way through this weeping crowd — one of the disappointed liberators shouted an insult at his back — but for the very first time, Richard got to school in under twenty minutes.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“Die Freude an dem, was am richtigen Platz ist, was nicht verloren geht, was auf die richtige Weise gehandhabt wird und nicht verschwendet, die Freude an dem, was gelingt, ohne ein anderes am Gelingen zu hindern, ist, so sieht er das, in Wahrheit die Freude an einer Ordnung, die nicht von ihm errichtet, sondern von ihm nur gefunden werden muss, die außer ihm liegt, und ihn gerade deshalb verbindet mit dem, was wächst, fliegt oder gleitet, ihn dafür zwar von manchen Menschen entfernt, aber das ist ihm gleich.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen

“Über das sprechen, was Zeit eigentlich ist, kann er wahrscheinlich am besten mit denen, die aus ihr hinausgefallen sind. Oder in sie hineingesperrt, wenn man so will.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen

“Eine ganze Weile sitzen der Alte und der Junge da nebeneinander am Schreibtisch und sehen und hören, wie diese drei Menschen mit schwarzen und weißen Tasten etwas erzählen, das mit der Farbe der Tasten nicht das geringste zu tun hat.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen

“The workings of casualty are indirect.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“without memory, man is nothing more than a bit of flesh on the planet’s surface. Then they rake the grass and carry the garden furniture from the terrace to beneath the roof of the shed, they deflate the rubber dinghy that Richard hasn’t tried out a”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“Wein, alles, was sich gekühlt besser hält, wurde in diesen Katakomben gehandelt.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen

“Where did you grow up? What’s your native language? What’s your religious affiliation? How many people are in your family? What did the apartment or house you grew up in look like? How did your parents meet? Was there a TV? Where did you sleep? What did you eat? What was your favorite hiding place when you were a child? Did you go to school? What sort of clothing did you wear? Did you have pets? Did you learn a trade? Do you have a family of your own? When did you leave the country of your birth? Why? Are you still in contact with your family? What was your goal when you left home? How did you say your goodbyes? What did you take with you when you left? What did you think Europe would be like? What’s different? How do you spend your days? What do you miss most? What do you wish for? If you had children who were growing up here, what would you tell them about your homeland? Can you imagine growing old here? Where do you want to be buried?”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“Is the rift dividing them in fact a bottomless chasm; is that why such powerful turbulences have been released? And is it a rift between Black and White? Or Poor or Rich? Stranger and Friend? Or between those whose father's have died and those whose father's are still alive? Or those with curly hair and those with straight? Those who call their dinner fufu and those that call it stew? Or those who like to wear yellow, red, and green t-shirts and those who prefer neckties? Or those who like to drink water and those who prefer beer? Or between speakers of one language or another? How many borders exist within a single universe? Or, to ask it differently, what is the one true, crucial border?

... it's just a matter of a few pigments in the material that's known as skin in all the languages of the world, meaning that the violence on display here is not at all the harbinger of a storm in the center of the universe but is in fact due merely to an absurd misunderstanding that has been dividing humankind and preventing it from realizing how enormously long the lifespan of a planet is compared to the life and breath of any one human being. Whether you clothe your body in hand-me-down pants and jackets from a donation bin, brand-name sweater's, expensive or cheap dresses, or uniforms with a helmet and visor- underneath this clothing, every one of us is naked and must surely, let's hope, have taken pleasure in sunshine and wind, in water and snow, have eaten or drunk this and that tasty thing, perhaps even have loved someone and been loved in return before dying one day.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“Could these long years of peacetime be to blame for the fact that a new generation of politicians apparently believes we’ve now arrived at the end of history, making it possible to use violence to suppress all further movement and change? Or have the people living here under untroubled circumstances and at so great a distance from the wars of others been afflicted with a poverty of experience, a sort of emotional anemia? Must living in peace — so fervently wished for throughout human history and yet enjoyed in only a few parts of the world — inevitably result in refusing to share it with those seeking refuge, defending it instead so aggressively that it almost looks like war?”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“lesson”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“Een arts kan heel in het algemeen de mensheid proberen te dienen, maar het staat hem uiteraard ook vrij zich alleen in dienst te stellen van een bepaald deel van de mensheid. Een zekere dr. Thaler bijvoorbeeld had ongeveer tweehonderd jaar geleden in Wenen de uit Nigeria afkomstige Soliman na diens dood met de toestemming van keizer Franz de huid afgestroopt, had de man die in een veldslag het leven van de vorst van Lobkowicz had gered, een neger genaamd Soliman, de huid afgestroopt, had de leraar van de vorsten van Liechtenstein, een zwarte genaamd Soliman, de huid afgestroopt, had de vrijmetselaar van de loge De Ware Eendracht, een Moor genaamd Soliman, de huid afgestroopt, had bij wijze van spreken de broeder van de vrijmetselaars Mozart en Schikaneder, de borg van de naar opname in de loge strevende wetenschapper Ignaz von Born, een Afrikaan genaamd Soliman, de huid afgestroopt, had een gehuwde Wener, die zes talen vloeiend sprak, wiens dochter later getrouwd was met baron Von Feuchtersleben en wiens kleinzoon Eduard in het begin van de negentiende eeuw naam maakte als dichter, de huid afgestroopt, had een gezien man uit de hogere Weense kringen, die lang geleden weliswaar een Afrikaans kind was geweest, genaamd Soliman, de huid afgestroopt, had een mens die in het begin van zijn leven op de slavenmarkt was ingeruild voor een paard en later was doorverkocht naar Messina, genaamd Soliman, om kort te gaan: een voormalige slaaf van een laag ras genaamd Soliman de huid afgestroopt. Hij had de huid daarna gelooid, op een corpus van hout gespannen en, tegen de wens van diens dochter, die verzocht 'de huid van haar vader aan haar te overhandigen teneinde hem volgens de regels ter aarde te kunnen bestellen', tegen de wens van die dochter haar opgezette vader ter stichting van het Weense publiek in een vitrine op de vierde verdieping van het Keizerlijk Naturaliënkabinet gezet. Het veren rokje waarmee de Moor was uitgedost, was - wetenschappelijk niet geheel correct - afkomstig van Zuid-Amerikaanse indianen, maar het exotische aspect van het preparaat kwam daardoor veel beter tot zijn recht.

Heel even stelde Richard zich voor dat in een vitrine in het staatsmuseum van Caïro bijvoorbeeld de opgezette archeoloog Heinrich Schliemann zou staan, gekleed in een Spaans stierenvechterskostuum of in Mongoolse klederdracht van schapenleer en zijde.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen

“Leidt de vrede, waar de mensheid te allen tijde naar heeft verlangd en die tot nu toe maar in zo weinig delen van de wereld is verwezenlijkt, er alleen toe dat hij niet wordt gedeeld met degenen die er hun toevlucht zoeken, maar zo agressief wordt verdedigd dat hij er zelf bijna uitziet als een oorlog?”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen

“Your own property is in peril when your neighbor’s house burns.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“The older he gets, the more grateful he is to have just as little idea as anyone else what is in store.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“To investigate how one makes the transition from a full, readily comprehensible existence to the life of a refugee, which is open in all directions — drafty, as it were — he has to know what was at the beginning, what was in the middle, and what is now. At the border between a person’s life and the other life lived by that same person, the transition has to be visible — a transition that, if you look closely enough, is nothing at all.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“He can’t remember, but he still knows exactly where to find it on his bookshelf, books are willing to wait, he says whenever visitors ask if he’s read all the books on his shelves. . . .”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“Dove va un uomo, quando non sa dove andare?”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen