Lies that do not hurt, which are different from lies that protect oneself or hurt another person. That is not my business. But the truth is mostly very boring, and you can help it along with lies. There is no harm in that.

How easily the routine of sin establishes itself.

...I remain restless and dissatisfied; what I knot with my right hand, I undo with my left, what my left hand creates, my right fist shatters

What novel - or what else in the world - can have the epic scope of a photograph album? May our Father in Heaven, the untiring amateur who each Sunday snaps us from above, at an unfortunate angle that makes for hideous foreshortening, and pastes our pictures, properly exposed or not, in his album, guide me safely through this album of mine.

Whenever there has been talk of exterminating rats, others, who were not rats, have been exterminated.

[To be an artist,] this desire to conquer all with images.

I belonged to the generation that grew up under National Socialism, and was blinded and led astray - and allowed itself to be led astray.