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I'm a Berliner - fast, loud, obnoxious, industrious, brutally open.

I did that all the more, if I may say so, because I was aware of the fact that there is an inclination to go to extremes in German people, and in the German character generally.

You could be a victim, you could be a hero, you could be a villain, or you could be a fugitive. But you could not just stand by. If you were in Europe between 1933 and 1945, you had to be something.

As a German citizen, as a German professor, and as a political person, I hold it to be not only my right but also my moral duty to take part in the shaping of our German destiny, to expose and oppose obvious wrongs.

I know what Germans are. They are a funny people. They are always choosing someone to lead them in a direction which they do not want to go.

I have long been convinced that my artistic ideal stands or falls with Germany. Only the Germany that we love and desire can help us achieve that ideal.

Prejudices and preferences exist and will continue to. When you learn how to market yourself, you become less of a victim.

In Germany I am not so famous.

I was a street-guy villain. I was a street-corner villain. I was an illiterate villain. All rough edges.