Of course, we avoid death. To know something is inevitable is one thing. To accept, to truly feel it... that's different.

My mother as a young girl went out with a young SS officer and she didn't really know what was going on - she just liked the uniform. When he told her about the things that he did, she was disgusted and broke up with him.

When ideas lead to ideology, that's a very dangerous thing. Ideology then leads to creating the image of an enemy, and it leads to the murder and massacre.

I'm far more relaxed with German. I'm a control freak. I like to know exactly who's saying and doing what.

If I'm reading a book that doesn't leave me with questions, moving questions, that I feel confronted with, then for me it's a waste of time. I don't want to read a book that simply confirms what I already know.

In German. I'm more sensitized to the details, to the emotions. In English, I wouldn't detect as much nuance.

When you create a church, an institution, and you create a dogma. When you create an ideology, that's the danger. Communism, too, is a beautiful idea, but millions of people died when communism became an ideology.