Berlin Alexanderplatz

“You can talk like that for another hundred years. I can only laugh at it.” “Do not laugh. Do not laugh.” “Because you do not know me. Because you do not know who I am. Who Franz Biberkopf is. He’s not afraid of anything. I’ve got fists. Just look here at these muscles of mine.”

A bee, a wasp, a bumblebee, is flying round on the ceiling above, next to the stovepipe, a perfect miracle of nature in winter. All others of its race, breed, convictions and species are dead, dead already or not yet born; this is the ice age and the lonely bumblebee must survive, it does not know how it came about and why it had to be him.

“Just speak. How sweetly the birds can sing when they have escaped the weasel. Yet there are many weasels and still the little bird shall sing! You still do not turn your eyes to me. You still do not need to behold me. You hear the babble of men, the clamour of the street, the roar of the tramway. But only breathe, listen. Amidst it all you shall h

What filthy rotten luck, it’s a flamin’ disaster, I feel like smashin’ the whole world to pulp.

You don’t shed any tears over your old trousers when they’re moth-eaten and worn out, you buy new ones, and that is what this world lives off.

Blood must flow, blood must flow, blood must flow in torrents thick and fast.19 “I couldn’t care less. The whole world will fall to bits if you wait long enough, and you along with it. I shan’t dance to that tune again.

I knock everything to pieces you knock everything to pieces, he knocks everything to pieces.

Behold, the ball does not fly just as you throw it and where one wants, it flies roughly like it, but it goes a little bit further and perhaps a big bit further you know, and then a little bit to one side.”

We like to have a laugh here, we’re cheerful, our life here is great, from early evening until late.”