Mara Delius

‘No matter how grim the outlook or how politicians squabble over what to do, Germans stick to their idealistic concept of Europe’

‘Do we still have an intellectual elite that reads, and writers to cater for it? In Germany, we have Merkur’

‘Europe’s intellectuals should get on with the job of helping to lift the continent out of its apparently endless crisis’

‘In Germany, whether it’s a matter of beansprouts or nuclear power plants, moral superiority can quickly turn into self-centred hysteria’

‘I only discovered both how much I was missing New York and what was irritating me about Berlin when I visited Manhattan in the week after
bin Laden’s killing’

‘China’s place in the world is that of a plagiariser — the intellectual equivalent of the faked designer bags you find in Beijing’

‘When Mr Googleberg attempts a comeback, he will come up against a German attachment to truth and decency’

‘Every woman among male egos knows she has to fight a war—an older colleague calling you “Blondie”, for instance’

‘Who would want a dusty collection of children’s books, their spines broken, written in German?’