Pam Neale

“The real question is: How sturdy and solid is the floor our civilization stands on? How many lives with no prospects, shattered and senseless, can it bear the weight of before it cracks somewhere or other, splits at the joints?”
― Christa Wolf, City of Angels or Overcoat of Dr. Freud

“Every system of power in the world has a vested interest in weakening the individuality of its subjects and tries to weaken or it possible completely extinguish it.”
― Christa Wolf, City of Angels or Overcoat of Dr. Freud

“Etsuko had to go back to the restaurant, but she settled on the sofa for a few minutes. When she had been a young mother there used to be only one time in her waking hours where she’d felt a kind of peace, and that was always after her children went to bed for the night. She longed to see her sons as they were back then: their legs chubby and white, their mushroom haircuts misshapen because they could never sit still at the barber. She wished she could take back the times she had scolded her children just because she was tired. There were so many errors. If life allowed revisions, she would let them stay in their bath a little longer, read them one more story before bed, and fix them another plate of shrimp.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“To become oneself, with all one's strength.
Difficult.
A bomb, a speech, a rifle shot-and the world can look a different place. And then where is this "self"?”
― Christa Wolf, The Quest for Christa T.