Top 13 Quotes & Sayings by Heinrich Böll

A child... never takes time off as a child; time off does not begin until the principles of order have been accepted.

If you want to do something... get up and actually do it!

I am a clown...and I collect moments.

Behind every word a whole world is hidden that must be imagined.

An artist is like a woman who can do nothing but love, and who succumbs to every stray male jackass.

I don't trust Catholics," I said, "because they take advantage of you." "And Protestants?" he asked with a laugh. "I loathe the way they fumble around with their consciences." "And atheists?" He was still laughing. "They bore me because all they ever talk about is God.

Oh, that ludicrous virile earnestness!

Behind every word a whole world is hidden that must be imagined. Actually, every word has a great burden of memories, not only just of one person but of all mankind. Take a word such as bread, or war; take a word such as chair, or bed or Heaven. Behind every word is a whole world. I'm afraid that most people use words as something to throw away without sensing the burden that lies in a word.

One ought to go too far, in order to know how far one can go.

Humor is really one of the hardest things to define, very hard. And it's very ambiguous. You have it or you don't. You can't attain it. There are terrible forms of professional humor, the humorists' humor. That can be awful. It depresses me because it is artificial. You can't always be humorous, but a professional humorist must. That is a sad phenomenon.

I need very little reality.

Strangely enough I like the kind to which I belong: people.

If the dead could speak there would be no more war.