Best 11 quotes of Jan-philipp Sendker on MyQuotes

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.

And so there must be in life something like a catastrophic turning point, when the world as we know it ceases to exist. A moment that transforms us into a different person from one heartbeat to the next. The moment when a lover confesses that there's someone else and that he's leaving. Or the day we bury a father or mother or best friend. Or the moment when the doctor informs us of a malignant brain tumor. Or are such moments merely the dramatic conclusions of lengthier processes, conclusions we could have foreseen if we had only read the portents rather than disregarding them? And if these turning points are real, are we aware of them as they happen, or do we recognize the discontinuity only much later, in hindsight?

Do we leave the dead behind or do we take them with us? I think we take them with us. They accompany us. They remain with us, if in another form. We have to learn to live with them and their deaths.

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.

Of course I am not referring to those outburts of passions that drive us to do and say things we will later regret, that delude us into thinking we cannot life without a certain person, that set us quivering with anxiety at the mere possibility we might ever lose that person-a feeling that impoverishes rather than enriches us because we long to possess what we cannot, to hold on what we cannot. No. I speak of a love that brings sight to the blind. Of a love stronger than fear. I speak of a love that breathes meaning into life, that defies the natural laws of deterioration, that causes us to flourish, that knows no bounds. I speak of the triumph of the human spirit over selfishness and death.

Only a few days earlier he had explained to her that he did not merely read books but traveled with them, that they took him to other countries and unfamiliar continents, and that with their help he was always getting to know new people, many of whom even became his friends.

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.

She saw that he knew what loneliness was, that he understood why it might be raining inside a person even when the sun shone, that sadness needed no immediate cause.

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.

Who are you? What’s your name?” “Mi Mi.” “Do you hear that thumping noise?” “No.” “It must be here somewhere.” Tin Win knelt down. Now it was nearly next to his ear. “I hear it more and more distinctly. A soft pulsing. You really don’t hear it?” “No.” “Close your eyes.” Mi Mi closed her eyes. “Nothing,” she said, and laughed. Tin Win leaned over and felt her breath on his face. “I think it’s coming from you.” He crept closer to her and held his head just in front of her chest. There it was. Her heartbeat.

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