The Appointment Quotes

“Everyday brought me further away from other people, I had been placed out of the world's sight, as if in a cupboard, and I hoped it would stay that way. I developed a yearning for being alone, unkempt, untended.”
― Herta Müller, The Appointment

“Hey, not while I'm at my devotions, no so fast, the fat man said, inside the shithouse you're communing with God, and outside you find that all hell's broken loose.”
― Herta Müller, The Appointment

“I’ve always had just enough sense to spare others, but never enough to save myself from misfortune.”
― Herta Müller, The Appointment

“At that hour the moon is almost entirely eaten away; it doesn’t know where to go after reaching the city. The sky has to loosen its grip on the earth as day begins to break. The streets run steeply up and down, and the streetcars travel back and forth like rooms ablaze with light.”
― Herta Müller, The Appointment

“Daytime sleep is not deep black; it’s shallow and yellow. Our sleep is restless, the sunlight falls on our pillows. But it does make the day a little shorter.”
― Herta Müller, The Appointment

“Even judges' children hear something about the world, they go to the Black Sea like everyone in the country. They look out and feel the same urge to go somewhere, feel it tugging at them from head to toe. You don't have to be particularly bad off to think: This can't be a the life I get. The judges' children know as well as Lilli and me that the same sky that looks down on the border guards stretches all the way to Italy or Canada, where things are better than here. One way or the other, the attempt will be made, whether sooner or later, in this way or that.”
― Herta Müller, The Appointment

“The reasaon I'm shy of objects is because I like them. I transfer the thoughts that are against me onto them. Then these thoughts go away, unless I talk about them - just like my wariness of people. Maybe it all collects in your hair.

After I separated from my husband, in the quiet days when no one was shouting at me anymore, I started noticing other people's wariness of strangers. I saw how they combed their hair in public. In the factory, in the city, in the streets, and trams, buses, and trains, while waiting in front of a counter or standing in a line for milk and bread. People comb their hair at the movies before the light goes out, and even in the cemetery. While they're parting their hair you can see their wariness of others collecting in their combs. But they can't comb it out completely if they go on talking about it. The fear of strangers sticks to the comb and makes it greasy. People who talk about it can't get rid of their fear of strangers; their combs are always clean.”
― Herta Müller, The Appointment

“I do a lot of counting. Cigarette butts, trees, fence slats, clouds, or the number of paving stones between one phone pole and the next, the windows along the way to the bus stop in the morning, the pedestrians I see from the bus between one stop and the next, red ties on an afternoon in the city. How many steps from the office to the factory gate. I count to keep the world in order, I said. Paul”
― Herta Müller, The Appointment

“Then you go on talking, about something you never actually mention. And your forehead and mouth are as far apart as they can be.”
― Herta Müller, The Appointment

“Man hat es leichter, wenn man selber weg muß, die Angst wegträgt, und das Glück da läßt, und vom anderen erwartet wird. Zu Hause sitzen und warten dehnt die Zeit zum Zerreißen und treibt die Angst auf die Spitze.”
― Herta Müller, The Appointment

“En el camino me resultaba sospechoso que arriba, en el cielo, hubiera algo hermoso y en la tierra, abajo, no hubiera ninguna ley que prohibiese mirar a lo alto.”
― Herta Müller, Hoy hubiera preferido no encontrarme a mí misma (Nuevos Tiempos nº 179)

“Para hablar no tengo la cabeza despejada, si no, le preguntaría qué hay que ver en mí.”
― Herta Müller, Hoy hubiera preferido no encontrarme a mí misma (Nuevos Tiempos nº 179)

“Como botones de nácar que estuvieran cosidos por debajo, quizás hasta dentro de la tierra.”
― Herta Müller, Hoy hubiera preferido no encontrarme a mí misma (Nuevos Tiempos nº 179)

“A gente sai para dar uma caminhada e o mundo se abre. E antes que a gente tenha conseguido esticar bem as pernas, mais uma vez ele se fecha. Daqui até ali é só um liga-e-desliga de uma lanterna, e chamam isso de vida. Nem vale a pena calçar os sapatos.”
― Herta Müller, The Appointment

“I was all wrapped up, the streetlamps and lighted windows were glittering, the frost bit into our faces, our lips felt like frozen crusts of bread, our cheeks as smooth and cold as porcelain. Sky and street were nothing but snow, we were driving into a great big snowball.”
― Herta Müller, The Appointment