“He and Onno had once come to the conclusion that you had to decide for yourself whether after your death you wanted to return to your father, then you must go into fire, because that was spirit, but your mother was of course the earth, the body.”

“He understood very well that it was just because of this intimacy that their marriage had not survived.”

“If you find life absurd, shouldn’t you find death precisely meaningful?”

“I had already taken a step toward their house, but then Father said, 'No, not there. They're hiding Jews.'"Christ!" exclaimed Anton, slapping his forehead.”

“Die Frage, was nun eigentlich war zwischen ihnen, würden sie später erörtern, wenn all die Tage in ihrer Erinnerung zu einem einzigen, für immer unvergeßlichen Tag zusammengeflossen sein würden. Auch die Griechen, wußte Onno, die die Grundlage für die westliche Kultur gelegt hatten, besaßen kein Wort für „Kultur“. Die Wörter entstanden erst, wenn die Sache verschwunden war.”

“If you believe we shouldn't have done it, then you also believe that, in the light of history, the human race shouldn't have existed. Because then all the love and happiness and goodness in this world can't outweigh the life of a single child.”

“In a world full of war, famine, oppression, deceit, monotony, what—apart from the eternal innocence of animals—offers an image of hope? A mother with a newborn child in her arms? The child may end up as a murderer or a murder victim, so that the hopeful image is a prefiguration of a pietà: a mother with her newly dead child on her lap.”