Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from Look Who's Back:
“What irritates me most of all about these morning people is their horribly good temper, as if they have been up for three hours and already conquered France.”
“To begin with I thought we were driving around in circles until I realised that Herr Starbuck owned dozens of coffee houses.”
“We all know, of course, what to make of our newspapers. The deaf man writes down what the blind man has told him, the village idiot edits it, and their colleagues in the other press houses copy it. Each story is doused afresh with the same stagnant infusion of lies, so that the “splendid” brew can then be served up to a clueless Volk.”
“Aber man weiß ja, was man von unseren Zeitungen zu halten hat. Da notiert der Schwerhörige, was ihm der Blinde berichtet, der Dorftrottel korrigiert es, und die Kollegen in den anderen Pressehäusern schreiben es ab.”
“He looked confused. “With your girlfriend, I mean. Who was to blame?”“I don’t know,” I said. “Ultimately Churchill, I expect.”
“Germans today keep their waste more thoroughly separated than their races.”
“One never knows when and why such people start talking; frequently they only open their mouths because they realize they haven’t said anything yet, or because they’re worried that if they continue to remain silent they will be regarded as insignificant.”
“It came as no surprise to learn of the success the Swede has recently enjoyed with his furniture. In that rotten state of his the Swede is permanently on the lookout for firewood, so it is no wonder that from time to time this might result in the odd table or chair.”
“The telephone, it struck me at that moment, is the wrong means of communication for people without ears.”
“In Berlin I have time and again met people who make no secret of the fact that their only reason for stirring at such an ungodly hour of the morning is so that they can leave the office earlier in the afternoon. I have suggested to several of these eight-hour logicians that they ought to start work at ten o’clock at night, thereby allowing them to leave at six in the morning and perhaps even arrive home before it is time to get up.”
“Had I known back then just how cheap it was to employ Poles, I might as well have leapfrogged their country.”
“And oh, how a warrior drunk on victory can enchant a young woman.”
“In my opinion, only bakers need to work early in the morning. And the Gestapo, of course—that is self-evident. To tear the Bolshevist rabble from their beds, so long as they are not Bolshevist bakers. For they would already be awake, and thus the Gestapo, for their part, would have to get up even earlier, and so on and so forth.”
“And as for appearing in swimming trunks—well, that is the most preposterous thing imaginable. You couldn’t dissuade Mussolini from doing it. And more recently that suspect Russian leader has been doing it too. An interesting fellow, no question, but as far as I am concerned it is a foregone conclusion: the moment a politician removes his shirt, his policies are dead in the water. All he will say is, “Look, my dear fellow countrymen, I have made the most extraordinary discovery: my policies look better without a shirt on.”
“Os erros não existem para serem lamentados mas sim para não serem repetidos.”
“But with superior morale, with an unwavering, fanatical spirit, everything is possible!”
“Someone with whom I was unacquainted had turned to me with a military problem, and as I was currently without a state to govern I decided to lend my comrade my support. Thus I spent the following three and a half hours engaged in a naval exercise by the name of “Minesweeper.”
“We all know, of course, what to make of our newspapers. The deaf man writes down what the blind man has told him, the village idiot edits it, and their colleagues in the other press houses copy it. Each”
“Wherever there is a large motorway enabling the transport of ton after ton of German goods, you will inevitably find a sweet little rabbit trembling by the roadside.”
“We all know, of course, what to make of our newspapers. The deaf man writes down what the blind man has told him, the village idiot edits it, and their colleagues in the other press houses copy it.”
“A large number of people had already gathered in the city centre to demonstrate against the government. Seemingly it had occurred to no-one to opt for the most obvious solution – stormtroopers.”
“Am meisten ärgert mich an diesen Morgenmenschen diese entsetzliche gute Laune, als wären sie bereits drei Stunden wach und hätten da schon Frankreich überrannt.”
“Dieser Starbuck kann nicht überall zugleich kochen. Niemand weiß, von wem der Kaffee kommt, wir wissen nur: Der Starbuck, der war es nicht.”
“Na, mein Führer, wie war die Nacht?”
“the moment a politician removes his shirt, his policies are dead in the water. All he will say is, “Look, my dear fellow countrymen, I have made the most extraordinary discovery: my policies look better without a shirt on.”
“One must undertake everything with utter, fanatical determination. Or one will get nowhere.”
“Great art must not be sullied by politics. One would never, after all, seek to embellish the Mona Lisa, not even with a swastika.”
“Die ersten Stunden am Kiosk gehörten den einfachen Arbeitern und den Rentnern. Sie redeten nicht viel, kauften Rauchwaren, die Morgenzeitung, vor allem eine Zeitung namens »Bild« war sehr beliebt, gerade auch bei Älteren, ich nahm an, weil der Verleger eine unerhört große Schrift bevorzugte, damit auch Menschen mit Sehschwäche nicht auf Informationen zu verzichten brauchten. Eine ausgezeichnete Idee, musste ich im Stillen zugeben, daran hatte nicht einmal der eifrige Goebbels gedacht”
“This question was fired at me by one Ulf Bronner, an assistant director, in his mid-thirties perhaps, and a strikingly ill-dressed man. Still, he was not dressed as shabbily as the cameramen; through my recent work for and with broadcasting companies I have discovered that they are the scruffiest-looking individuals in any form of employment, outdone only by press photographers. I have no idea why it should be thus, but as far as I can make out press photographers seem to wear the ragged cast-offs of television cameramen. Perhaps they imagine that nobody will ever see them, because after all the camera is in front of their faces. Whenever I come across an unflattering picture of someone in a magazine—they may be grimacing or similar—I frequently wonder what the photographer must have looked like. This Bronner fellow was better dressed than that, but not much.”
“The Reichsmark was no longer legal tender, even though others—probably some clueless dilettantes on the side of the victorious powers—had clearly adapted my plan to turn it into a European-wide currency. At any rate, transactions were now being carried out in an artificial currency called “euro,” regarded, as one would expect, with a high level of mistrust. I could have told those responsible that this would be the case.”
