'I was fond of my father's old friend Günter Grass. I'd like to think he knew better'

‘German intellectuals are fascinated by outsiders, especially tortured rebels like Heinrich von Kleist’

‘Their grandparents fled the Nazis, their parents boycotted all things German, but their children are flocking to Berlin’

'Germans are obsessed with paying taxes - they are affronted by any state with little or not taxation - such as the British Virgin Islands'