Heinrich Böll Quotes (6 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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Black Sheep

Heinrich Böll

Heinrich Böll: 6 quotes1 like

Famous Heinrich Böll Quotes

“I am a clown… and I collect moments.”

Heinrich Böll book The Clown

Source: The Clown

“An artist is like a woman who can do nothing but love, and who succumbs to every stray male jackass.”

Heinrich Böll book The Clown

Source: The Clown

“He avoids the official "heroes'" cemetery, done in such impeccable taste. Why, he wonders, do the Germans do so much for their dead and so little for the living?”

Heinrich Böll

You Enter Germany (1967); cited from Aufsätze, Kritiken, Reden (Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1967) p. 278. Translation: "You are Now Entering Germany", in Leila Vennewitz (trans.) Missing Persons and Other Essays (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1994) p. 48.

“A family without a black sheep is not a typical family.”

Heinrich Böll book Black Sheep

Eine Familie, die keine schwarzen Schafe hat, ist keine charakteristische Familie.
"Die schwarzen Schafe" (1951); cited from 1947 bis 1951 (Köln: F. Middelhauve, 1963) p. 478. Translation: "Black Sheep", in Leila Vennewitz (trans.) The Stories of Heinrich Böll (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1995) p. 408.

“One ought to go too far, in order to know how far one can go.”

Heinrich Böll

Sie muss also zu weit gehen, um herauszufinden, wie weit sie gehen darf. <br class="br">"Die Freiheit der Kunst", speech delivered at Wuppertal on September 24, 1966; cited from Cultura 21 magazine http://www.cultura21.de/magazin/denkanstosse/d20050930a.html, September 30, 2005. Translation: Walter Laqueur Germany Today: A Personal Report (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985) p. 130.

“Creativity is not limited to people practising one of the traditional forms of art, and even in the case of artists, creativity is not confined to the exercise of their art. Each one of us has a creative potential, which is hidden by competitiveness and success-aggression. To recognize, explore and develop this potential is the task of the School. Creation – whether it be a painting, sculpture, symphony or novel – involves not merely talent, intuition, powers of imagination and application, but also the ability to shape material that could be expanded to other socially relevant spheres.”

Heinrich Böll

Joseph Beuys and Heinrich Böll (1972), cited in: Caroline Tisdall, Joseph Beuys, exh.cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 1979. p. 278.