A subject which at first glance seems quite removed from the undeclared concern of the book can encapsulate that concern.

The moral backbone of literature is about that whole question of memory. To my mind it seems clear that those who have no memory have the much greater chance to lead happy lives.

A subject which at first glance seems quite removed from the undeclared concern of the book can encapsulate that concern.

It is a sore point, because you do have advantages if you have access to more than one language. You also have problems, because on bad days you don't trust yourself, either in your first or your second language, and so you feel like a complete halfwit.

People's ability to forget what they do not want to know, to overlook what is before their eyes, was seldom put to the test better than in Germany at that time.

Comparing oneself with one's fellow writers is a bad idea. I would not review a fellow writer unless I had something terribly positive to say.

I always read the translator's draft all the way through - a very laborious business.

I don't want to talk about my trials and tribulations. Once you reveal even part of what your real problems might be in life, they come back in a deformed way.

I was brought up largely by my grandfather because my father only returned from a prisoner-of-war camp in 1947 and worked in the nearest small town, so I hardly ever saw him.

I've always felt that the traditional novel doesn't give you enough information about the narrator, and I think it's important to know the point of view from which these tales are told: the moral makeup of the teller.

In school I was in the dark room all the time, and I've always collected stray photographs; there's a great deal of memory in them.

Occasionally I write a small piece or the odd lecture in English, and I teach in English, but my fiction is always written in German.

Places seem to me to have some kind of memory, in that they activate memory in those who look at them.

To my mind, it seems clear that those who have no memory have the much greater chance to lead happy lives. But it is something you cannot possibly escape: your psychological make-up is such that you are inclined to look back over your shoulder.

Until I was 16 or 17, I had heard practically nothing about the history that preceded 1945. Only when we were 17 were we confronted with a documentary film of the opening of the Belsen camp.

Where I grew up, in a remote village at the back of a valley, the old still thought the dead needed attending to - a notion so universal, it's enscribed in all religions. If you didn't, they might exact revenge upon the living.

You could grow up in Germany in the postwar years without ever meeting a Jewish person. There were small communities in Frankfurt or Berlin, but in a provincial town in south Germany, Jewish people didn't exist.

The history of Christianity, therefore, must be of concern to all who are interested in the record of man and particularly to all who seek to understand the contemporary human scene.

There may or may not be a God or gods; the Siblings do not concern themselves with proving or disproving such a thing. By definition, gods are more powerful than men, and thus quite able to fend for themselves without help.

It is a very real concern and my view is that everything changed on September 11th and the procedure, the policies that were in place prior to September 11th no longer should apply.

We have to make philosophy itself an object of philosophical concern.

Common sense tells us that this explosion of media sources should eliminate any concern over a lack of diversity of views in the marketplace and competition.

What has any poet to trust more than the feel of the thing? Theory concerns him only until he picks up his pen, and it begins to concern him again as soon as he lays it down.

The idea of it becomes a little freaky if you're dealing with someone who has trouble differentiating between fantasy and reality, but that's a concern no matter what kind of movie you're dealing with.

As soon as you concern yourself with the 'good' and 'bad' of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weaken and defeat you.

Given the difficulty of resisting such temptations over the longer run, a proper concern for the welfare of congressional souls may well be the ultimate argument in favor of term limitations.

Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law; in journalism, literature and art.

It is your concern when your neighbor's wall is on fire.

Much has been said and continues to be said of what little concern the Turks had for the Acropolis treasures.

We should have been there shoulder to shoulder with our allies. Our concern is the instability of our government as an ally. We are playing again with national and global security matters.

Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of.

It is not as though the process of production holds any mystery for me, I know exactly what it involves and I know the predominant concern in shooting one of those things is production values - or as they would say, seeing it all up there on screen.

The success and the failure are not my concern, but His.

My mission is a cosmic mission. My concern is for all of humanity, and not only this present world, but the world hereafter. My mission penetrates the past, present, and future, and encompasses all humanity.

It doesn't much concern me if Tiger plays in the tournament or no.

Above and beyond the question of how to grow the economy there is a legitimate concern about how to grow the quality of our lives.

Our nation's immigration policy has been of top concern in recent years, and for good reason. With between eight and twelve million illegal aliens in the United States, it is obviously a problem out of control.

We need to enact a strong standard that will stop a terrorist or illegal alien from getting a driver's license because border security is a major concern in a post-September 11th world.

The main concern of the study is with the outline of a theoretical system. Its minor variations from writer to writer are not a matter of concern to this analysis.

You see, Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice. It makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties. It doubts our concern. It questions our commitment. Because there is no way we can look at what's happening in Africa, and if we're honest, conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else.

With the club now in administration and concern about where the money for land sale has gone, I know there are huge commercial difficulties to be resolved, but I hope that football will once again become the most important issue.

An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.

A knowledge of the forces that rule society, of the causes that have produced its upheavals, and of society's resources for promoting healthy progress has become of vital concern to our civilization.

It is a sign of a dull nature to occupy oneself deeply in matters that concern the body; for instance, to be over much occupied about exercise, about eating and drinking, about easing oneself, about sexual intercourse.

For my future I have no concern, and as a true philosopher, I never would have any, for I know not what it may be: as a Christian, on the other hand, faith must believe without discussion, and the stronger it is, the more it keeps silent.

I now have two kids of my own in college, so I know how important it is that we keep the dream alive for every family and I share the concern about rising tuition costs.

Lots of people working in cryptography have no deep concern with real application issues. They are trying to discover things clever enough to write papers about.

Well that's the point: People don't normally take away things from films anymore. You go and see a $100 million film, half an hour later, your biggest concern is what are you going to be eating.

The worst state of affairs is when science begins to concern itself with art.