“To be frank with you, Melchior, I have almost the same feeling since I read your explanation.——It fell at my feet during the first vacation days. I was startled. I fastened the door and flew through the flaming lines as a frightened owl flies through a burning wood——I believe I read most of it with my eyes shut.”

“Wendla: How did you come here?Melchior: I followed my thoughts.”

“I was a baby when I came into the world--otherwise I might have been smart enough to become a different person.”

“If our esteemed colleague, Zungenschlag, does not find our room ventilated sufficiently, I should like to suggest that our esteemed colleague, Zungenschlag, have a ventilator set into his forehead.”

“In my opinion it is unwise to judge a young man by his school record. We have too many examples of bad students becoming distinguished men, and, on the other hand, of brilliant students not being at all remarkable in life.”

“And, therefore, hold your head high, Herr Stiefel!——Such a crisis as this comes to all of us and will soon be surmounted. If all of us had recourse to dagger or poison in such cases, there would soon be no men left in the world.”

“When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.”