Und wenn ich mal heirate, dann muss mein Mann zwei Bedingungen erfüllen: Er muss Bücher und Kinder lieben, alles andere ist nicht so wichtig. Ich meine, wie er aussieht und so. Obwohl es ja nicht schaden könnte, wenn er schöne Zähne hätte.

A childhood without books – that would be no childhood. That would be like being shut out from the enchanted place where you can go and find the rarest kind of joy.

You understand Teacher, don't you, that when you have a mother who's an angel and a father who is a cannibal king, and when you have sailed on the ocean all your whole life, then you don't know just how to behave in school with all the apples and ibexes.

I have been very interested in labor movement. If I could have wished another life, I would have loved to be a pioneer woman in the beginning of labor movement.

I don't mind dying, I'll gladly do that, but not right now, I need to clean the house first.

I have never experienced being madly in love the way most people seem to have been, although it is not something I would miss. Instead I have had an enormous ability to love my children and my grandchildren and my great grandchildren.