The Lives of Others Quotes

You know what Lenin said about Beethoven's Appassionata, 'If I keep listening to it, I won't finish the revolution.' Can anyone who has heard this music, I mean truly heard it, really be a bad person?

Buchverkäufer: 29.80. Would you like it gift wrapped?
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: No. It's for me.

Junge mit Ball: Are you really with the Stasi?
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Do you even know what the Stasi is?
Junge mit Ball: Yes. They're bad men who put people in prison, says my dad.
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: I see. What is the name of your...
Junge mit Ball: My what?
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Ball. What's the name of your ball?
Junge mit Ball: You're funny. Balls don't have names.

Socialism has to start somewhere.

The state office for statistics on Hans-Beimler street counts everything; knows everything: how many pairs of shoes I buy a year: 2.3, how many books I read a year: 3.2 and how many students graduate with perfect marks: 6,347. But there's one statistic that isn't collected there, perhaps because such numbers cause even paper-pushers pain: and that is the suicide rate.

Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Madam?
Christa-Maria Sieland: Go away. I want to be alone.
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Madam Sieland?
Christa-Maria Sieland: Do we know each other?
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: You don't know me, but I know you. Many people love you for who you are.
Christa-Maria Sieland: Actors are never "who they are."
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: You are. I've seen you on stage. You were more who you are than you are now.
Christa-Maria Sieland: So you know what I'm like.
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: I'm your audience.
Christa-Maria Sieland: I have to go.
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Where to?
Christa-Maria Sieland: I'm meeting an old classmate. I...
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: You see? Just now, you weren't being yourself.
Christa-Maria Sieland: No?
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: No.
Christa-Maria Sieland: So you know her well, this Christa-Maria Sieland. What do you think - would she hurt someone who loves her above all else? Would she sell herself for art?
Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: For art? You already have art. That'd be a bad deal. You are a great artist. Don't you know that?
Christa-Maria Sieland: And you are a good man.

Georg Dreyman: You are a great artist. I know that, and your audience knows it, too. You don't need him. You don't need him. Stay here. Don't go to him.
Christa-Maria Sieland: No? I don't need him? Don't I need this whole system? What about you? Then you don't need it either, or need it even less. But you get in bed with them, too. Why do you do it? Because they can destroy you too, despite your talent and your faith. Because they decide what we play, who is to act, and who can direct.

An innocent prisoner will become more angry by the hour due to the injustice suffered. He will shout and rage. A guilty prisoner becomes more calm and quiet. Or he cries. He knows he's there for a reason. The best way to establish guilt or innocence is non-stop interrogation.