Jan-Philipp Sendker: "Must one have seen..."

"Must one have seen the world? In this village, in every house, in every shack, you will find the entire range of human emotions: love and hate, fear and jealousy, envy and joy. You needn't go looking for them."

—Jan-Philipp Sendker, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

Jan-Philipp Sendker: "Love makes us beautiful..."

"Love makes us beautiful. Do you know a single person who loves and is loved, who is love unconditionally and who, at the same time is ugly? There's no need to ponder the question. There is no such person."

—Jan-Philipp Sendker, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

Jan-Philipp Sendker: "Music, my father often said..."

"Music, my father often said, was the only reason he could sometimes believe in a god or in any heavenly power."

—Jan-Philipp Sendker, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

Jan-Philipp Sendker: "Do children what to..."

"Do children want to know their parents as independent individuals? Can we see them as they were before we came into the world?"

—Jan-Philipp Sendker, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

Jan-Philipp Sendker: "The true essence of..."

"The true essence of things is invisible to the eyes. Our sensory organs love to lead us astray, and eyes are the most deceptive of all. We rely too heavily upon them. We believe that we see the world around us, and yet it is only the surface that we perceive. We must learn to divine the true nature of things, their substance, and the eyes are rather a hindrance than a help in that regard. They distract us. We love to be dazzled."

—Jan-Philipp Sendker, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

Jan-Philipp Sendker: "Life... is a gift..."

"Life... is a gift full of riddles in which suffering and happiness are inextricably intertwined. Any attempt to have one without the other was simply bound to fail."

—Jan-Philipp Sendker, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

Jan-Philipp Sendker: "What do we know..."

"What do we know about our parents, and what do they know about us? And if we don't even know the individuals who have accompanied us since birth - we not them and they not us - then what do we know about anyone at all?"

—Jan-Philipp Sendker, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

Jan-Philipp Sendker: "... there are wounds time..."

"... there are wounds time does not heal, though it can reduce them to a manageable size."

—Jan-Philipp Sendker, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

Jan-Philipp Sendker: "And so there must be..."

"And so there must be in life something like a catastrophic turning point, when the world as we know it ceases to exist. A moment that transforms us into a different person from one heartbeat to the next."

—Jan-Philipp Sendker, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

Jan-Philipp Sendker: "I speak of a love..."

"I speak of a love that brings sight to the blind. Of a love stronger than fear. I speak of a love that breathes meaning into life, that defies the natural laws of deterioration, that causes us to flourish, that knows no bounds. I speak of the triumph of the human spirit over selfishness and death."

—Jan-Philipp Sendker, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats