Bernhard Schlink, The Reader Quotes

What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.

What is law? Is it what is on the books, or what is actually enacted and obeyed in a society? Or is law what must be enacted and obeyed, whether or not it is on the books, if things are to go right?

The Odyssey is the story of motion both purposeful and purposeless, successful and futile. What else is the history of law?

Când ne deschidemtu mie şi eu ţie, când ne scufundămtu în mine şi eu în tine, când ne pierdemtu în mine şi eu în tine, Abia atuncieu sunt euşi tu eşti tu.

Is that what makes me sad? The eagerness and belief that filled me then and exacted a pledge from life that life could never fulfill?

But the finger I pointed at her turned back to me. I had loved her. Not only had I loved her, I had chosen her.