Quotes from Jonathan Littell

I have remained someone who believes that the only things indispensable to human life are air, food, drink and excretion, and the search for truth. The rest is optional.

If you were born in a country or at a time not only when nobody comes to kill your wife and your children, but also nobody comes to ask you to kill the wives and children of others, then render thanks to God and go in peace. But always keep this thought in mind: you might be luckier than I, but you're not a better person.

I have remained someone who believes that the only things indispensable to human life are air, food, drink and excretion, and the search for truth. The rest is optional.

So what's the most atrocious thing you've seen?" He waved his hand: "Man, of course!

If you ever managed to make me cry, my tears would sear your face.

Please, mein Herr, shoot the children cleanly.

There were always reasons for what I did. Good reasons or bad reasons, I don't know, in any case human reasons. Those who kill are humans, just like those who are killed, that's what's terrible. You

Blood transmits a propensity for heart diseases; if it also transmits a propensity for treason, no one has ever been able to prove it.

So who is guilty? Everyone, or no one? Why should the worker assigned to the gas chamber be guiltier than the worker assigned to the boilers, the garden, the vehicles? The

A necessidade, já os gregos o sabiam, é uma deusa não só cega mas também cruel.

Il sangue trasmette una propensione alle malattie cardiache; se trasmette anche una propensione al tradimento, nessuno è mai riuscito a dimostrarlo.

Non era solo la questione di mia sorella; era più di così, era l'intero corso degli eventi, la miseria del corpo e del desiderio, le decisioni che si prendono e sulle quali non si può tornare, il senso stesso che si sceglie di dare a quella cosa che chiamiamo, forse a torto, la nostra vita.

both deaths were equally vain, neither of them shortened the war by so much as a second; but in both cases, the man or men who killed them believed it was just and necessary; and if they were wrong, who's to blame? What

It was one thing or the other: either you are dead, and then in any case there's nothing else to understand, or else you are not yet dead, and in that case, even with the rifle at the back of your head or the rope around your neck, death remains incomprehensible, a pure abstraction, this absurd idea that I, the only living person in the world, could disappear.

This path is very rarely the result of any choice, or even of personal predilection. The victims, in the vast majority of cases, were not tortured or killed because they were good any more than their executioners tormented them because they were evil. It

A ty zabija?e? ludzi"?.-"Raz musia?em dobija?. Ale zazwyczaj zajmowa?em si? wywiadem, pisa?em raporty".-"A co czu?e?, jak strzela?e? do tych ludzi?". Odpowiedzia?em bez wachania: "To samo, co czu?em, patrz?c, jak inni strzelaj?. Gdy istnieje taka konieczno??, staje si? niewa?ne, kto to robi. Poza tym uwa?am, ?e patrz??, ponosz? tak? sam? odpowiedzialno?? jak ci, co strzelaj?".

Schellenberg had the habit of calling people he didn't like whores, and this term suited him well - and when I think about it, it's true that the insults people prefer, the ones that come most spontaneously to their lips, often in the end reveal their own hidden faults, since they naturally hate what they most resemble.

Ve stát? jako je ten náš , m?l každý p?id?lenou roli: ty jsi ob??, a ty, ty jsi kat, a nikdo nem?l na vybranou, nikoho se neptali, jestli je s tím srozum?n, protože všichni byli zam?nitelní, ob?ti i katové.

Volevo semplicemente augurarle di sopravvivere a questa guerra per risvegliarsi fra vent'anni, ogni notte, urlando. Spero che lei non riesca a guardare i suoi figli senza vedere i nostri che ha assassinato.

Mi spieghi, per favore, cosa intende per razza. Perché per me è un concetto scientificamente indefinibile e quindi privo di valore teorico.

Quoting from Hegel and Jünger, he argued that the State could reach its ideal point of unity only in and through war: "If the individual is the negation of the State, then war is the negation of that negation. War is the moment of absolute socialization of the collective existence of the people, the Volk." But

Prima ho parlato della paura: quel che provavo allora non lo chiamerei paura, comunque non una paura schietta e consapevole, era un disagio quasi fisico, come un prurito che non si può grattare, concentrato sulle parti cieche del corpo, la nuca, la schiena, le natiche.

Voltando le spalle al pilota e alla muta scatenata, mi misi a singhiozzare: le lacrime mi si gelavano sul viso, piangevo per la mia infanzia, per quel tempo in cui la neve era un piacere senza fine, in cui una città era uno spazio meraviglioso per vivere e una foresta non era ancora un posto comodo per uccidere la gente.

Nechci, aby naši muži trp?li pocitem osobní zodpov?dnosti.