Siegfried Lenz

“One never comes into embarrassment, if one is ready to balance. To ask oneself never in embarrassment, what have you in these decades made.”

“Every story I write starts with a dilemma or a theme. Once I am convinced that this is the issue that is perturbing my thoughts, I start to look for characters capable of representing it.”

“I sit in my room at my desk, looking out the window to the yard and waiting for a plot to come to me, to rise slowly in my mind.”

“I read what I write over and over and make corrections and improvements, until I reach the conclusion that the material deserves to stand on its own.”

“Sometimes, it is precisely when you discover that you are living very happily that you suddenly find yourself in danger. To be happy means to discover that you are exposed to being hurt.”