Irmgard Keun Quotes

If a young woman from money marries an old man because of money and nothing else and makes love to him for hours and has this pious look on her face, she's called a German mother and a decent woman. If a young woman without money sleeps with a man with no money because he has smooth skin and she likes him, she's a whore and a bitch.

They have courses teaching you foreign languages and ballroom dancing and etiquette and cooking. But there are no classes to learn how to be by yourself in a furnished room with chipped dishes, or how to be alone in general without any words of concern or familiar sounds.

Vater unser, mach mir noch mit einem Wunder eine feine Bildung - das Übrige kann ich ja selbst machen mit Schminke.

Yes, there are stars," I lie and I give them to him--there are no stars--but there must be some behind the clouds and they must be shining inside-out tonight. I love stars, but I hardly ever notice them. I guess when you're blind, you realize how much you forget to see.

The city isn't good and the city isn't happy and the city is sick," he says--"but you are good and I thank you for that.

That says a lot, if somebody pleases you - love is so much more that I'm thinking, perhaps it doesn't exist at all.

I hesitate to demonstrate my ignorance, which is never a good idea, by the way. Because you only get oppressed.

And sometimes somebody is laughing--and that laugh is stuffing all of yesterday's and today's anger back into the mouth that it's oozing from.

There are bars with women wearing shirts with stiff necks and ties and they are terribly proud to be perverts, as if that weren't something nobody can do anything about.

A writer in the act of writing must fear neither his own words nor anything else in the world. A writer who is afraid is no true writer.

And now I feel like crying, because I really do not understand, and I don't think I will when I'm older either. It was only when I loved Franz I understood the world, and felt happy. When you love, you're praying. Everything was quite clear. I wanted to be good. I think you begin things the right way when you want to be good. And I think I'm doing everything wrong now because all I want is for people to be good to me. I want to be loved, everybody wants to be loved; for a thousand people who want to be loved there may perhaps be just one who wants to love. Our Father which art in heaven...my heart is all a lump of grief.

All the people are in a hurry--and sometimes they look pale under those lights, then the girls' dresses look like they're not paid off yet and the men can't really afford the wine--is nobody really happy? Now it's all getting dark. Where is my shiny Berlin?

And I know for a fact that those who "always have to tell the truth" are definitely lying (63)

Father thou art in heaven, please make my inside so good and so fine that he can love me. I'm going to buy him a tie, because that's something I can do. Someone once told me that I have an almost masculine understanding of it. i guess there are situations where having a past is to your advantage. Heavenly Father, perform a miracle and give me an education--I can do the rest myself with make-up.

I so want to give him my notebook--I want to be a real person--he should read my book--I work for him, I cook for him, I'm Doris--Doris isn't just some piece of dirt. I don't want to be innocent, I want to be the real Doris here and not that silly civilized product of the Green Moss's imagination.

But I say: "Tilli, sometimes women too are sensual and want only that one thing." And there's no difference. Because sometimes I only want to wake up with someone in the morning, all messed up from kissing and half dead and without any energy to think, but wonderfully tired and rested at the same time.

And it was then that I knew what it means to be lucky--lucky to have met a person during those three minutes of the day that he's good. Because I have a lot of time on my hands--you can imagine that that adds up. there are 24 hours in a day, and half of that is night. That leaves you with 12. And that's 12 times 60 minutes, that is, 720 minutes minus three minutes of goodness still leaves you with 717 minutes worth of nasty ordinary person.

He'd be much, much more in love with the little one if he could give her nice clothes and diamonds and soft furs… that's just the way it is: the more brilliant and impressive a role you can play for someone, the more you love them.

We went to the movies together. It was a movie about girls in uniforms. They were high-class girls, but they had the same problems I have. You love somebody and that brings tears to your eyes and gives you a red nose. You love somebody--it's nothing you can understand. It doesn't matter whether it's a man or a woman or God.

Si un être était capable de mentir aux autres et de les rouler comme il peut se mentir à soi-même, il ferait une sensationnelle carrière d'escroc.

I don't want to work, but I have buoys of cork in my stomach. They won't let me go down, will they?

The city isn’t good and the city isn’t happy and the city is sick,” he says — “but you are good and I thank you for that.

You can always tell the profession of a girl’s last boyfriend, because they talk the language of his occupation.

Sometimes there are mirrors that make me look like an old woman. That’s the way it’s going to be thirty years from now.

Then I can sit in the film café from morning till night, all year round. Some day they will discover me as a starved corpse to use as an extra.

Times are horrible. Nobody has any money and there is an immoral spirit in the air — just as you’re getting ready to hit on someone for some cash, they’re already hitting on you!

Well, I’m not that much into ideals. I can’t see the point of it.

But I could just as well turn into a Hulla--and if I became a star, I might actually be a worse person than a Hulla, who was good. Perhaps glamour isn't all that important after all.

For you being human means being human and being a woman and being a worker and being everything, everything. Asking a lot? Each of us is asked only for what he can give. Woe betide us, if he doesn't give it all.

And I think it will be a good thing if I write everything down, because I’m an unusual person. I don’t mean a diary — that’s ridiculous for a trendy girl like me. But I want to write like a movie, because my life is like that and it’s going to become even more so. And I look like Colleen Moore, if she had a perm and her nose were a little more fashionable, like pointing up. And when I read it later on, everything will be like at the movies — I’m looking at myself in pictures.

I continue to write because my hand wants something to do and my notebook with its white lined pages has a kind of readiness to receive my thoughts and my tiredness and to be a bed that my letters can lie in. That way at least part of me has a place to lie down.

And I bought myself a thick black notebook and cut some doves out of white paper and stuck them on the cover, and now I'm looking for a beginning. My name is Doris, and I'm baptized and Christian, and born too. We are living in the year 1931. Tomorrow, I'll write more.

I've known for ages that men and women are animals by nature, I've also known that we have a sacred duty to make something different of ourselves, and I still believe that we have the strength and the chance to be more than we are. Through ourselves? Despite ourselves? Doesn't matter, I still believe…

Les autres gens ont au moins un peu d'ambition ou une petite étincelle d'illusion pour se réchauffer les mains. Moi je n'ai rien. Je voudrais me balader dans le vaste monde. Toujours plus loin. Un beau jour je tomberais peut-être sur un patelin ou sur un être et je pourrais dire: ça y est, je reste ici, je suis chez moi.

And they would laugh at me. The dress was all sticking out around me and it was dark green with a pattern of animals with long tongues on it--and all the kids were laughing at me. And now I'm wearing a fur coat, and I'm in Berlin! And I would throw rocks at them and swear to myself that I would not be the kind that is laughed at, but that I would do the laughing.

And the real actors look down on those from the drama school and are sure to let them know. They also look down on each other, but that they don’t show too much. In any case, there’s a hell of a lot of looking down on each other, and everyone thinks they’re the only one who’s wonderful. And the janitors are the only ones who act like normal people and greet you when you say hello to them.

And we talked to each other at a restaurant and I was supposed to order wine and I would much rather have had something to eat. But that’s just like them — they don’t mind paying large sums for something to drink, but as soon as they have to pay just a small amount for something to eat they feel taken advantage of, because food is a necessity, but having a drink is superfluous and therefore elegant.

Gilgi is drifting in the river of superfluous feelings. Superfluous? They were once, they seemed to be once. Isn't she happy? Of course she is. Often. But the hours of happiness come at a high price. The bill is presented promptly. Pay it! With what? With fear and twinges of pain. No, I don't think the price is too high, I just find the currency strange. Fear - pain! To whom should I pay them? Who profits from this odd currency?

Then conversation. It’s always about sex. You really get tired of it. Jokes about sex, stories about sexual conquests, lectures on serious science about sex, which is supposed to sound like an expert discussion which is why it tends to get even more disgusting. But you’re not supposed to show your disgust, because if you do, the Scarface will give you this condescending smile: pooh-pooh, I thought you were a woman who’s above that, but women always have a dirty mind.

Everything is being torn up and destroyed and if you want to be honest, you have to admit that you can’t figure things out anymore. And particularly an educated man can’t build anything for himself anymore, and everything is uncertain. The whole world is uncertain and life and the future and what we used to believe in and what we believe in now, and work isn’t fun anymore, because you always have a bad conscience because there are so many people who don’t have any. And so a man has nothing but his wife and he’s very dependent on her because he wants to be able to believe in something, and that’s the love for his wife — and then she doesn’t want all that love and that way you’re not worth anything at all anymore. And because you’re nothing but a burden on humanity these days — that’s why you need that special someone so badly to whom you can be a joy. And then all of a sudden you’re no joy anymore. And true elegance is disappearing in this day and age and in times like that, women are the first ones to slide, and men are held by the law and they hold women too — and once all the laws of humanity have disappeared, man has nothing more to hold onto,

It's our age-old hereditary sorrow that no-one can give himself absolution and God can't, either. God - this little figment of overworked imagination, God - this pallid lie born of desperation - we say God - and we mean humanity, ourselves and others. The longing for a human being is genuine - a human being is more than God - a human being is a beast and God. Longing for God - damned laziness which costs nothing. Mild, bloodless hysteria. Longing for a human being - you pay for that with your blood and with your self and with your flesh - your longing for God can be settled with promissory notes - rags -paper - a drop of red blood is worth more than three prayers.

The industrialist dropped me already. And it’s all because of politics. Politics poisons human relationships. I spit on it. The emcee was a Jew, the one on the bike was a Jew, the one who was dancing was a Jew.… So he asks me if I’m Jewish too. My God, I’m not — but I’m thinking: if that’s what he likes, I’ll do him the favor — and I say: “Of course — my father just sprained his ankle at the synagogue last week.” So he says, he should have known, with my curly hair. Of course it’s permed, and naturally straight like a match. So he gets all icy; turns out he’s nationalist with a race, and race is an issue — and he got all hostile — it’s all very difficult. So I did exactly the wrong thing. But I didn’t feel like taking it all back. After all, a man should know in advance whether he likes a woman or not. So stupid! At first they pay you all sorts of compliments and are drooling all over you — and then you tell them: I’m a chestnut! — and their chin drops: oh, you’re a chestnut — yuk, I had no idea. And you are exactly the way you were before, but just one word has supposedly changed you.

Les dictateurs se ressemblent comme les ivrognes, et pourtant il n'y en a pas deux qui soient pareils, tout comme les ivrognes. Ce qu'ils ont en commun, c'est le besoin de se soûler. Les dictateurs cherchent l'ivresse du pouvoir, les ivrognes l'ivresse de l'alcool. Pour un abstinent, tous les intoxiqués se ressemblent désespérément. Ou bien il les fuit, ou bien il s'incline devant l'espèce de cataclysme qu'ils représentent. Au fond, beaucoup de gens soupirent après un cataclysme fait homme. Pensez donc, toujours adorer l'invisible, l'inaccessible… ça les arrangerait tellement que Dieu devienne un ventre et qu'il se promène sur la terre.

La guerre était terminée et Frau Emmi Klatte faisait de la récupération. Il ne tombait plus de bombes et les tirs d'artillerie avaient cessé également. La grande ville paraissait morte et détruite, mais il y avait des restes. Au milieu des ruines se dressaient les fantômes insolites de quelques maisons désertes restées debout. Tout appartenait à tout le monde. Mon myosotis de belle-mère rôdait comme une possédée dans ce désert, et rafla entre autres une machine à coudre, quelques machines à écrire, quatre tapis, dix-sept coquetiers, un cadre doré, une porte en fer forgé, un poulailler et un tableau monumental. La toile représentait un nu d'un rose vaporeux, une femme à demi allongée sur le ventre, balançant au bout d'un index également rose un magnifique papillon bleu. Rêveuse et l'air absent, comme il se doit.

Je n'ai jamais compris pourquoi certains de mes camarades de guerre en voulaient tellement aux femmes et aux jeunes filles qui regardaient du côté des soldats alliés. Mon Dieu, n'avait-on pas ressassé des années durant à ces pauvres créatures que le héros en uniforme, le beau mâle vainqueur devait être l'idéal suprême de la femme. On leur avait appris: tout ce qui est allemand est vainqueur - et tout ce qui est vainqueur est allemand.

C'est beau de pouvoir aimer. C'est une grâce. Si jamais un être pouvait, une fois encore, m'inspirer un grand amour, j'espère que je serais capable d'éprouver, moi, de la reconnaissance à son égard, qu'il réponde ou non à cet amour.

She has no sense of direction — when she goes to the bathroom in a restaurant, you need to give her a compass.

And that’s what’s important: how you react to someone while they’re sleeping and not exerting any influence over you.

I used to think you could help people only with money. Actually, you can’t really help anyone, but you can give them pleasure.

Was man glaubt, gibt es.

Perhaps the two of them wouldn’t love each other so much if they were allowed to.

I love you because I'm good to you.

Do you love me, just a teensy-weensy bit, my dove, or is it just my money?' he asks full of fear - and that moves me so much that I actually start to have some feelings for him.

Pretty girls are a business' I say, 'and that has nothing do to with love

you have to hate anyone who can dismiss you, even if they're good to you, because you work for them and not with them.

I have this desire in my gut to be liked by everybody. That always happens when nobody likes you.

I feel tired. Today was so eventful, and such a strain. Life generally is, these days. I don’t want to do any more thinking. In fact I can’t do any more thinking. My brain’s all full of spots of light and darkness, circling in confusion.

«Padre nostro che sei nei cieli, concedimi una buona istruzione, fa’ questo miracolo, al resto ci penso da sola con un po’ di rimmel».

When there are two of you, you can laugh at a good many things which would make you cry on your own.

When I look in the mirror before I go to bed at night, I sometimes do think I look very pretty. I like my skin, because it's so smooth and white. And my eyes seem large and grey and mysterious, and I don't believe there can be a film star in the world with such long, black lashes.[***]Still, it's a shame if someone's so often at her prettiest when she's alone. Or perhaps I'm only imagining it. At any rate, when I'm with Gerti I feel small and pale and peaky. Even my hair doesn't shine. It's a kind of dull blonde colour.

Still, what does a girl care about the law when she wants a man?

Perhaps the two of them wouldn't love each other so much if they were allowed to. However, there's nothing more idiotic than wondering why people love each other when they are in love.

It always used to be so cosy when two girls went to the Ladies together. You powdered your noses, and exchanged rapid but important information about men and love. And you combed your hair, and the pair of you wondered whether to let the men you were with take you home, and if they'd get above themselves, and want to kiss when you didn't. Or if you did, you'd be terribly worried the man might not think you pretty enough. You exchanged excited advice in the Ladies. It was often silly advice, but still, conversations in the Ladies were fun, and interesting.

You never think you're good enough for the person you're in love with, anyway.

Man hat mich vergessen. Ich habe in einer dunklen Ecke gestanden und alles gehört. Man konnte nicht wissen, dass ich noch da war, aber man hat mich vergessen. Alle sind fort, und ich gehe alleine nach Hause - es ist nicht weit, aber es ist meine eigene Schuld.

In der Luft zitterte noch Schreien, man hörte es nicht mehr, man sah es nur noch. Wir sahen und fühlten es alle und waren für eine Sekunde vereint in Trauer und Angst. Denn es war getötet worden, und wir sind dabei gewesen.

Ich habe die Menschen geliebt, länger als ein Jahrzehnt habe ich mir die Finger wundgeschrieben und den Kopf leergedacht, um sie vor dem Wahnsinn der hereinbrechenden Barbarei zu warnen. Eine Maus, die durch Piepsen eine Lawine aufhalten will. Die Lawine ist gekommen und hat alles begraben, die Maus hat ausgepiepst. (...) Ich war ein geistreicher und witziger Journalist. Man kann weder hier noch im Ausland ein geistreicher und witziger Journalist sein, wenn einem ewig die Schreie aus den deutschen Konzentrationslagern in den Ohren gellen. Zu viel an Grausamkeit ist geschehen. Ein böser Tag der Rache wird kommen, und die Rache wird nicht göttlich, sondern noch grausamer, noch menschlicher, noch unmenschlicher sein. Und auf die grausame Rache, die ich gleichzeitig wünsche und nicht wünsche, wird wieder eine grausame Rache folgen müssen - was jetzt in Deutschland begann, scheint hoffnungslos ohne Ende. Ein bluttriefendes Riesenrad, dreht Deutschland sich um sich selbst, weiter, immer weiter durch die nächsten Jahrzehnte - beinahe gleichgültig, welche Stelle des Rades gerade oben, welche unten ist.

At home, we had lots of streets too, but they were all familiar with each other. Here, there are so many more streets that they can't possibly all know each other. It's a fabulous city.

There's got to be someone for me, who's breathing Berlin. And he will have black hair and a bowtie of white silk

Because what a man like him really needs is a God whom he can blame and whom he can get mad at when things go wrong. This way he's got nobody who can be the target of his anger and hatred and that's why he blames his wife, but she minds - and the one who is called God doesn't mind.

And more and more people keep coming in. This Gestapo room seems to be a positive place of pilgrimage. Mothers are informing on their daughters-in-law, daughters on their fathers-in-law, brothers on their sisters, sisters on their brothers, friends on their friends, drinking companions on their drinking companions, neighbours on their neighbours. And the typewriters go clatter, clatter, clatter, all the statements are taken down, all the informers are treated well and kindly. Now and then mothers whose sons have disappeared turn up, wives whose husbands have disappeared, sisters whose brothers have disappeared, children whose parents have disappeared, friends whose friends have disappeared. People making these inquiries are not so well and kindly treated as the informers.…

Herr Kulmbach had been saying the Führer had united the whole German nation. Which is true enough, it’s just that the people making up the whole German nation don’t get on with each other. But that doesn’t make any difference to political unity, I suppose.

But Godenheimer’s had the best and cheapest silver foxes, and buttered Frau Breitwehr up, and called her “Madam” every other sentence. So she bought the silver fox fur. When she wears it, they look like a rich fur taking a poor woman out for a walk.

There’s a great deal going on in the world, and nothing happening—precisely because so much is going on—

I just love him too much—and in every way, and I only have to look at him for everything else to become meaningless to me, utterly, utterly meaningless

Our own mistakes are always the ones which we hold against other people …

Your own toothache always hurts more than someone else’s broken leg.

The tedium is the cornerstone of the stability of their relationship, and the fact that they have nothing to say to each other means that they feel no uneasiness about each other.

I bet you never had to live through really tough times.” “Yes, I did,” he says. Well, I’m not going to ask what he considers tough times. There are those who already feel sorry for themselves when they haven’t had a hot meal by three in the afternoon.

He was wearing a coat made from a thick gray material called Ulster. Ulster is always gray. I’m thinking, sex killers always wear windbreakers.

I’m still tired and sleeping all the time and still not enough. My arms are just hanging down at my sides and I don’t feel like doing anything at all. And I don’t have any desire — for nothing, not money, not my mother, not Therese.

And although he usually has a rather nervous voice and is jumping up and down like a kangaroo, he says this with complete nonchalance and to top everything off, he runs his hand across his head, which seems to be a particular habit of men who don’t have any hair that could be out of place. And then they get in a bad mood, because they’ve made the unpleasant discovery that it’s all smooth up there.

But at the same time, there’s a lot of friction at home. My father is yelling and screaming about how I’m going to make a living now, and my mother wants this career for me, and I can hardly eat anything anymore because of all that ado. My father is an old man and his life consists only of filthy cards and drinking beer and schnapps, and sitting around in bars — and that costs money! So when I no longer give him anything, I’m actually taking away from him. And I don’t cost him any money, except for sleeping in that crummy attic — and I hardly ever eat at home, but get invited to eat out. But now his entire face spells reproach. Looks like I’m going to have to find me a man to pay for my clothes and 50 marks a month for at home, so he keeps quiet. And if I tell him how I got the money, he kicks me out — for moral reasons. But if I don’t tell him, he doesn’t ask and doesn’t wonder about it, because he gets the money and it gives him peace of mind when he doesn’t have to think about anything.

What you have, you don’t need, and what you need, you don’t have.

There is a subway; it’s like an illuminated coffin on skis — under the ground and musty, and one is squashed. That is what I ride on. It’s interesting and it travels fast.

There was so much excitement! So I immediately realized that this was an exception, because even the nerves of an enormous city like Berlin can’t stand such incredible tension every day. But I was swooning and I continued to be swept along — the air was full of excitement. And some people pulled me along, and so we came to stand in front of an elegant hotel that is called Adlon — and everything was covered with people and cops that were pushing and shoving. And then the politicians arrived on the balcony like soft black spots. And everything turned into a scream and the masses swept me over the cops onto the sidewalk and they wanted those politicians to throw peace down to them from the balcony. And I was shouting with them, because so many voices pierced through my body that they came back out of my mouth. And I had this idiotic crying fit, because I was so moved. And so I immediately belonged to Berlin, being right in the middle of it — that pleased me enormously. And the politicians lowered their heads in a statesmanly fashion, and so, in a way, they were greeting me too.

So the navy-blue married man tells me that he’s from Northern Germany and that’s why he’s so introverted. But in my experience those who tell you immediately: “You know, I’m such an introvert,” are anything but, and you can rest assured that they’re going to tell you everything that’s on their mind.

And I know for a fact that those who “always have to tell the truth” are definitely lying.

But really the Romanisches Café is unacceptable. And they all say: ‘My God, that dive with those degenerate literary types. We should stop going there.’ And then they all go there after all. It was very educational for me, and like learning a foreign language. “And nobody has much money there, but they’re alive and part of the elite and instead of having money they play chess, which is a checkered board with black and blonde squares. They have kings too. And ladies. And it takes a long time, which is the whole point of it. Of course, the waiters don’t like it, because a cup of coffee only has a five-pfennig tip in it, which is very little for a chessy guest of seven hours. But it’s the cheapest occupation for the elite, because they’re not working and that’s why they’re keeping busy. And they are very literary, and the literary elite is incredibly busy with their coffee and chess and talking and all that intellect, so they won’t let on to themselves that they’re lazy.

Not that there’s anything going on between him and me. As I’ve been telling Therese, who also works at the office and is my friend: “There has to be some love involved. Otherwise, what about our ideals?

I always listen in on conversations — that always interests me. You never know what you might learn from it.

he’s just starting to tell her about his wonderful motorboat on the Rhine with such and such horsepower — my guess is it’s a high-end dinghy. And I can tell that he’s talking at the top of his voice, so I can hear him — no wonder! I’m wearing my elegant hat and the coat with the fox collar, and the fact that I’m starting to write into my dove-covered notebook undoubtedly looks very intriguing. But just now the alligator smiles at me and that always softens me up.

I’m walking on air and I’m so excited. I just came home. I have a box of chocolates next to me — I’m eating them, but I only bite into those with the creamy filling to find out if they have nuts in them — if not, I don’t like them — so I press them back together, so they will look like new — and tomorrow I’ll give them to my mother and Therese.

He did tell me that he wanted to get me into the movies — well, I pretended not to hear it. They just can’t help themselves. It’s a male sickness to tell every girl that they are the top executive of a film studio or at least that they have great connections. All I’m asking myself is if there are still any girls left who fall for that.

Right now I’m sitting in a restaurant. I’ve eaten enormous amounts of liverwurst, despite the fact that I could hardly get anything down, but it went down after all and I can only hope that it’s not going to harm me, given how upset I am. Because I’ve been fired and I’m shaking like a leaf. And I’m terrified of having to go home. I’ve come to know my father as an extremely unpleasant man without any sense of humor, when he’s at home. It’s not at all unusual — men who’re all Italian sunshine when they’re with their buddies at the bar, and who’ve got a big mouth and are entertaining everybody — and at home with their families they are such sourpusses that looking at them after they’ve spent a night with the bottle is like eating a pickled herring.

When The Artificial Silk Girl first appeared in English in 1933, it was part of an ongoing cultural exchange between Germany and Great Britain. But it was not only the fact that Keun’s novel had been a bestseller in Germany that prompted its instant translation; it was also one of the last accounts of everyday German life before the Nazis came to power. By the time the English translation appeared in Great Britain, Keun’s books had already been banned in Germany. Thus star translator Basil Creighton made a special point of emphasizing the political environment encountered by Keun’s Artificial Silk Girl in Berlin, adding passages in the translation that were designed specifically to help readers position Keun’s novel in the context of then-recent German political developments.

While there can be no doubt about Keun’s anti-Nazi sentiment, her “artificial silk girl” doesn’t really have any political convictions. In fact, she is completely clueless when it comes to politics, and therefore a perfect example for so many Germans of that time who realized what they had gotten caught up in only when it was too late to do much about it. In that sense, The Artificial Silk Girl can be read as an historical document, an entertaining and disturbing account of what it was like to be a young woman in Berlin as the Golden Twenties were drawing to a close.