The idea of a socialism with a human face was something that I absolutely could support, because it was my idea from the very first.

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

These were the things that the government supplied you with - in turn, of course, demanding obedience. But you must not imagine that it was a constant feeling of outrage that was in the minds of people and the hearts of people.

I did not oppose unification, I knew unification would have to come, but not in the form in which it did come. There were two ways of doing it and they took it the radical way, the forceful way.

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.

People who were not active in the intellectual life of the country could go on without feeling restricted, except they could not go where they wanted. They could not cross the border to the West whenever they liked.

I defended myself at the first opportunity I had, which was a meeting of writers in which I proved that Honecker had based his whole attack.