“Still, I mustn't grumble: I have more friends than enemies and there are moments when I am almost glad to be alive — when I watch the sun set and the moon rise, or see snow on mountain tops.” LifeFriendsSnowSunsetMountainsBeing AliveMoonrise Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“When I had almost reached him he turned and smiled at me. Then, with a strangely gauche and still hesitant movement, he shook my trembling hand. "Hello, Hans", he said, and suddenly I realised to my joy and relief and amazement that he was as shy and as much in need of a friend as I.” LoveDesireFriendshipAttractionAdmirationFascinationShyness Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“I can't remember much of what Konradin said to me that day or what I said to him. All I know is that we walked up and down for an hour, like two young lovers, still nervous, still afraid of each other; but somehow I knew that this was only a beginning and that from now on my life would no longer be empty and dull but full of hope and richness for us both.” LoveDesireFriendshipLoversAttractionAdmirationFascinationShyness Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“Standing quite still I looked at him. Needless to say Konradin hadn't giggled. He hadn't clapped either. But he looked at me.” LoveDesireFriendshipAttractionAdmirationFascination Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“I had no fear, only one will and one desire. I was going to do it for him.” LoveDesireFearFriendshipAdmirationFascination Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“When at last I left him I ran all the way home. I laughed, I talked to myself, I wanted to shout and sing, and I found it very difficult not to tell my parents how happy I was, that my whole life had changed, and that I was no longer a beggar but as rich as Croesus.” LoveHappinessDesireFriendshipAttractionExcitementAdmirationFascination Author:Fred Uhlman
“Until his arrival I had been without a friend. There wasn't one boy in my class who I believed could live up to my romantic ideal of friendship, not one whom I really admired, for whom I would have been willing to die and who could have understood my demand for complete trust, loyalty and self-sacrifice.” SchoolFriendshipLoneliness Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“Everything about him aroused my curiosity: the care with which he selected his pencils, the way he sat — erect, as if at any moment he might have to get up and give an order to an invisible army — and how he stroked his blond hair. I only relaxed when he, like everyone else, got bored and fidgeted whilst waiting for the bell for the interval between lessons.” SchoolCuriosityAdmiration Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“All I knew, then, was that he was going to be my friend. Everything attracted me to him.” LoveSchoolFriendshipAttractionAdmirationFascination Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“Then his proud bearing, his manners, his elegance, his good looks — and who could be altogether insensitive to them? — powerfully suggested to me that here at last I had found someone who came up to my ideal of a friend.” LoveSchoolFriendshipAttractionAdmirationEleganceFascinationGood Looks Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“A few days later it was the turn of the "Caviar" of the class. Three boys, Reutter, Müller and Frank, were known by this sobriquet because they kept strictly to themselves in the belief that they, and they alone among us, were destined to make their mark in the world.” SchoolSuperiorityCliques Book:The King Must Die / The Bull from the Sea Source: The King Must Die / The Bull from the Sea
“I can't remember exactly when I decided that Konradin had to be my friend, but that one day he would be my friend I didn't doubt.” LoveSchoolFriendship Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“The problem was how to attract him to me. What could I offer the one who had gently but firmly turned down the aristocrats and the Caviar? How could I conquer him, entrenched behind barriers of tradition, his natural pride and acquired arrogance?” SchoolFriendshipPrideArroganceAdmirationFascination Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“So I went through the whole list except the names beginning with H, and when I had finished I found that twenty-six boys out of the forty-six in my class had died for das 1000-jährige Reich.” SchoolDeathLossChildhoodGermanyNaziChildhood Trauma Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“He came into my life in February 1932 and never left it again. More than a quarter of a century has passed since then, more than nine thousand days, desultory and tedious, hollow with the sense of effort or work without hope- days and years, many of them as dead as dry leaves on a dead tree. I can remember the day and the hour when I first set eyes on this boy who was to be the source of my greatest happiness and of my greatest despair.” LoveHappinessDespairSeparationFirst Paragraphs Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“یا خدایی وجود ندارد و یا اولوهیتی وجود دارد که اگر بر همه چیز قادر باشد سنگدل است و اگر قادر نباشد، به کاری نمیآید.” GodFaithخدا Book:L'amico ritrovato Source: L'amico ritrovato
“یا پدر آسمانی _ آنطور که یهودیان و مسیحیان معتقدند _ وجود ندارد و یا اینکه وجود دارد و به مسائل بشریت اعتنایی نمیکند و درنتیجه مانند هرکدام از بتهای جاهلیت بیفایده است.” GodFaith Book:L'amico ritrovato Source: L'amico ritrovato
“Now the crucial question no longer seemed to be what life was, but what one was to do with this valueless, yet somehow uniquely valuable life?” LifePurposeValueMeaning Of LifeQuestions Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“Ce n'étaient là que des abstractions, des chiffres, des statistiques, des informations. On ne peut souffrir pour un million d'êtres.” SufferingSympathyMasses Book:L'Ami retrouvé: Refonte Source: L'Ami retrouvé: Refonte
“I once overheard him saying to my mother that, in spite of the lack of contemporary evidence, he believed a historical Jesus had existed, a Jewish teacher of morals, of great wisdom and gentleness, a prophet like Jeremiah or Ezekiel, but that he could not for his life understand how anyone could regard this Jesus as "Son of God". He found blasphemous and repellent the conception of an omnipotent God who could passively watch His Son suffer that bitter and lingering death on the cross, a Divine "Father" with less than a human father's urge to come to his child's assistance.” GodReligionSufferingFatherJesusSonJewish Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“Wouldn't it be better to avoid the thrust of the dagger which, I knew, with the atavistic insight of a Jewish child, would in a few minutes be plunged into my heart?” LovePainFriendshipBetrayalHurt FeelingsJewishAtavism Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“Who was I to dare to talk to him? In which of Europe's ghettos had my ancestor been huddled when Frederick von Hohenstaufen gave Anno von Hohenfels his bejewelled hand?” DignityShynessInternalised Antisemitism Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“And if you want the whole truth, I've had to fight for every hour I've spent with you; and the worst of all, I didn't dare talk to you last night because I didn't want to hurt you.” LoveTruthFriendshipPrideDignityPrejudiceBetrayal Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“It shook me as nothing had shaken me before. I had heard about earthquakes that engulfed thousands, about streams of burning lava that buried villages, about oceans that swallowed up islands. I had read of one million people drowned by the Yellow River, of two million drowned by the Yangtse. I knew that a million soldiers died at Verdun. But these were mere abstractions — numbers, statistics, information. One couldn't suffer for a million. But these three children I knew, I had seen with my own eyes — this was altogether different.” ChildrenDeathTragedyAbstractShock Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“For half an hour I kept up the pretence, but I knew perfectly well that he knew what was going on in me, or he would not have kept off the subject of the greatest importance to us both; the evening of the day before.” FriendshipBetrayalConfrontationHurt FeelingsPretence Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“I was alone before you came and would be still more alone if you threw me over, but I can't bear the idea of your being too ashamed of me to introduce me to your parents.” LoveFriendshipPrideShameBetrayalHurt Feelings Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“Aún recuerdo una violenta discusión entre mi padre y un sionista que había venido a recaudar dinero para Israel. Mi padre aborrecía el sionismo. Esa sola idea le parecía demencial. A su juicio, era tan absurdo reclamar Palestina después de dos mil años como lo habría sido que los italianos reclamaran Alemania porque en otra época la habían ocupado los romanos. Eso sólo podría desembocar en una matanza interminable y los judíos deberían combatir a todo el mundo árabe.” GuerraPalestine Israeli ConflictGenocidioSionismo Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“I studied his proud, finely carved face, and indeed no lover could have watched Helen of Troy more intently or could have been more convinced of his own inferiority.” LoveAdmirationLoverHelen Of Troy Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“Un giorno un nazista ricevette l'incarico di piazzarsi fuori dalla porta dello studio di mio padre con un cartello su cui era scritto: "Tedeschi, attenti. Evitate gli ebrei. Chiunque avrà a che fare con un ebreo sarà rovinato." Mio padre, allora, indossò l'uniforme da ufficiale, vi appuntò tutte le sue decorazioni, tra cui la Croce di Ferro di prima classe, e andò a mettersi di fianco al nazista. Questi aveva l'aria sempre più imbarazzata, mentre, pian piano si radunava attorno a loro una piccola folla. All'inizio la gente rimase in silenzio, ma, man mano che il numero dei presenti cresceva, cominciarono a udirsi dei borbottii che si trasformarono ben presto in grida di scherno. L'ostilità era diretta al nazista tanto che questi, poco dopo, pensò bene di andarsene, Non tornò più, né fu sostituito. Trascorsi alcuni giorni, mentre mia madre dormiva, papà aprì il gas.” Nazismo Book:L'amico ritrovato Source: L'amico ritrovato
“También teníamos intereses menos trascendentes, que parecían mucho más importantes que la certidumbre de que la Tierra se extinguiría, para lo cual faltaban millones de años, y de que nosotros mismos moriríamos, para lo cual parecía faltar aún más tiempo.” VidaJuventudEdad Book:Reunion Source: Reunion
“Perhaps if you were a Jewess it might be different. He'd suspect you of wanting to hook me. And he wouldn't like that at all. Of course, if you were immensely rich he might, he just might consider a marriage possible — but even so he'd hate to hurt my mother's feelings. You see, he's still very much in love with her.” LoveMarriagePrideDignityPrejudiceJewishAntisemitism Book:Reunion Source: Reunion