The Best Das Leben der Anderen Quotes

[first lines]
Guard: [subtitled version] Stand still. Eyes to the floor.
[pause]
Guard: Walk on.

Georg: 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: 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.

[last lines]
Buchverkäufer: 29.80. Would you like it gift wrapped?
Hauptmann: No. It's for me.

Hauptmann: Madam?
Christa: Go away. I want to be alone.
Hauptmann: Madam Sieland?
Christa: Do we know each other?
Hauptmann: You don't know me, but I know you. Many people love you for who you are.
Christa: Actors are never "who they are."
Hauptmann: You are. I've seen you on stage. You were more who you are than you are now.
Christa: So you know what I'm like.
Hauptmann: I'm your audience.
Christa: I have to go.
Hauptmann: Where to?
Christa: I'm meeting an old classmate. I...
Hauptmann: You see? Just now, you weren't being yourself.
Christa: No?
Hauptmann: No.
Christa: 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: For art? You already have art. That'd be a bad deal. You are a great artist. Don't you know that?
Christa: And you are a good man.

Unterleutnant: [enthusiastic] I've got a new one. So... Honecker comes into his office in the morning... opens the window, looks at the sun, and says...
Unterleutnant: [starts to worry] ... eh... what is it?
Unterleutnant: [startled] Oh, excuse me. That was... I'm just... I...
Oberstleutnant: [tries to put Stigler at ease] No no no, please colleague. We can still laugh about our state officials. Don't worry.
Oberstleutnant: [almost laughing] I probably know it already anyway.
Oberstleutnant: [encouraging] Come on! Tell it.
Unterleutnant: [feeling more comfortable] Well... Honecker, I mean... the General Secretary... sees the sun, and says, 'Good morning dear sun!'
Oberstleutnant: [with high pitch mocking voice] 'Good morning dear sun!'
Unterleutnant: ...and the sun answered, 'Good morning dear Erich!' At afternoon Erich sees the sun again and says, 'Good day dear sun' And the sun says: 'Good day dear Erich!' After work Honecker goes back to the window and says, 'Good evening dear sun!' But the sun doesn't answer! So he says again, 'Good evening dear sun, what's wrong?' And the sun answered and said, 'Oh, kiss my ass, I'm in the West now!'
[laughing]
Oberstleutnant: Name?
[becoming deadly serious]
Oberstleutnant: Rank? Department?
Unterleutnant: [frightened] Me? Stigler, 2nd Lieutenant Alex Stigler. Department M.
Oberstleutnant: [almost sighing] Don't need to tell you what this means for your career, what you just did.
Unterleutnant: [scared, slightly angry] Please Lieutenant Colonel... I just...
Oberstleutnant: [angry] You just mocked our party! That was political agitation! Surely just the tip of the iceberg! I am going to report this to the minister's office.
Oberstleutnant: [starts laughing] Hahahaha! I was just kidding! Pretty good, huh? Yours was good too. But I've got a better one. What is the difference between Erich Honecker and a telephone?
[pauses]
Oberstleutnant: Nothing! Hang up... try again. Hahaha!

Oberstleutnant: I have to show you something: "Prison Conditions for Subversive Artists: Based on Character Profile". Pretty scientific, eh? And look at this: "Dissertation Supervisor, A. Grubitz". That's great, isn't it? I only gave him a B. They shouldn't think getting a doctorate with me is easy. But his is first-class. Did you know that there are just five types of artists? Your guy, Dreyman, is a Type 4, a "hysterical anthropocentrist." Can't bear being alone, always talking, needing friends. That type should never be brought to trial. They thrive on that. Temporary detention is the best way to deal with them. Complete isolation and no set release date. No human contact the whole time, not even with the guards. Good treatment, no harassment, no abuse, no scandals, nothing they could write about later. After 10 months, we release. Suddenly, that guy won't cause us any more trouble. Know what the best part is? Most type 4s we've processed in this way never write anything again. Or paint anything, or whatever artists do. And that without any use of force. Just like that. Kind of like a present.

Hauptmann: Socialism has to start somewhere.

Georg: 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.

[Wiesler enters the elevator at his apartment building. A young boy with a ball joins him]
Junge: Are you really with the Stasi?
Hauptmann: Do you even know what the Stasi is?
Junge: Yes. They're bad men who put people in prison, says my dad.
Hauptmann: I see. What is the name of your...
[pauses]
Junge: My what?
Hauptmann: [thinks for a few more seconds] Ball. What's the name of your ball?
Junge: You're funny. Balls don't have names.

Hauptmann: Hands under your thighs. Palms down... What do you have to tell us?
Prisoner: I haven't done anything .. I don't know anything.
Hauptmann: You have done nothing... know nothing... . so you think we just arrest innocent citizens on a whim?
Prisoner: No... not
Hauptmann: If you think our humane system is capable of something like that, that would be a reason enough to arrest you

Paul: [to Hessenstein] We know you're working with the Stasi!
Georg: Paul! No, Paul, I don't know that!

Paul: [playing a record because the Stasi have bugged his flat] I foolishly rehearsed my speech for the West in here. Since then, I've become very musical.

Georg: 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?

Hauptmann: 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.

Georg: I want to ask you one thing.
Minister: Anything, my dear Dreyman.
Georg: Why wasn't my flat wired? Everyone was under surveillance. Why not me?
Minister: [whispers] You were under full surveillance. We knew everything about you.
Georg: Full surveillance?
Minister: The whole place was bugged. The works.
Georg: Impossible.
Minister: Take a look behind your light switches. We knew everything. We even knew that you weren't man enough to satisfy our little Christa.
Georg: [contemptuously] To think that people like you ruled a country.