The Wall was the actual symbol of a defeat, of inferiority.

I certainly hoped that in the Eastern part of Germany, what was just beginning to be called the German Democratic Republic, you would develop a system of socialism with freedom and democracy.

I was in psychological warfare in World War II, so I know psychological warfare when I see it.

If you live in a system that is suppressive, you don't walk upright, you always go with your head down.

Show me one place where a whole government is concerned with a book of a writer and is concerned enough to suppress it.

A great number of people in the East German parts had been Nazis, so the change of mind was not altogether there.

A foreman in the East wouldn't know how many workers he would have the next day, because part of his working force had left the system to go to West Germany.

We certainly hoped perestroika would win out and that there would be changes. We knew all along that socialism could flourish only with a certain amount of freedom and democracy.

Even in West Germany in the beginning, people wanted a kind of socialism.

I not only saw the possibility of nuclear war, I feared it very much. If they started a military conflagration, it would automatically lead to nuclear warfare.

You must have, if socialism was to succeed, a socialism with lots of democratic elements in it.

It is not objective proof of God's existence that we want but, whether we use religious language for it or not, the experience of God's presence.

At the center of your beingyou have the answer

Your mistakes are to help you develop your purpose, not shame and guilt.

Love has the power to...cure, to heal, to calm, to change and to unite. Use this power often.

The facts of life are very stubborn things.

There are so many interpretations that this film [The Lobster] could be approached from. But Yorgos [Lanthimos] is so specifically minded, he's so clinical in his direction of the film.

Heaven is purpose, principle, and people. Purgatory is paper and procedure. Hell is rules and regulations.

I considered people who didn't like my work to be in some way defective, deficient, lacking a sense of humor, and not understanding what was really going on.

A lot of men are very possessive and they want to control you. But as you grow older, you attract people who are on your wavelength and who understand who you are.

We must believe in ourselves or no one will believe in us.