Quotes from Jacqueline Harpman

My memory begins with my anger.

I felt as if this pain would never be appeased, that it had me in its grip for ever, that it would prevent me from devoting myself to anything else, and that I was allowing it to do so. I think that is what they call being consumed with remorse.

Being beautiful, was that for men?' 'Yes. Some women say that it is for ourselves. What on earth can we do with it? I could have loved myself whether I was hunchbacked or lame, but to be loved by others, you had to be beautiful.

Perhaps you never have time when you are alone? You only acquire it by watching it go by in others".

If you do something that is forbidden, it is the action that is the target. If you do something that isn't forbidden, and they intervene, then it's not the activity that's attracting the attention, it is you yourself.

Sometimes, I used to sit under the sky, on a clear night, and gaze at the stars, saying, in my croaky voice: "Lord, if you're up there somewhere, and you aren't too busy, come and say a few words to me, because I'm very lonely and it would make me so happy." Nothing happened. So I reckon that humanity— which I wonder whether I belong to —really had a very vivid imagination.

Is there a satisfaction in the effort of remembering that provides its own nourishment, and is what one recollects less important than the act of remembering? That is another question that will remain unanswered: I feel as though I am made of nothing else.

this slow dissipation, the gradual abandonment of all expectations, a defeat that had killed everything without a battle.

One after the other, they were buried under that sky and neither they nor I knew if it was the one under which we'd been born.

in the face of horror, ancient rituals regained their meaning

Death is sometimes so discreet that it steals in noiselessly, stays for only a moment and carries off its prey...

Look at them. They're pretending, they behave as though they still have some control over their lives and make momentous decisions about which vegetable to cook first.

All of a sudden, I found myself at the top. I was in what we later called a cabin, three walls and a door, also open, the plain spreading out before me. I bounded forward and looked. It was the world.

They bustled around chatting. It was the first time I listened closely, and I was astonished at how much they had to say, the passion with which they repeated the same thing in ten different ways so as to avoid noticing, in fact, that they had absolutely nothing to say to each other for ages, but human beings need to speak, otherwise they lose their humanity

Survival is never more than putting off the moment of death.

We have no future any more. All we can do is entertain ourselves by conversing.

Perhaps you never have time when are you alive? You only acquire it by watching it go by in others.

I received that caress several times - the only one I was able to tolerate - the silent gratitude of a woman receiving death at my hands. None wanted to endure pain and I think they were in a hurry to die. I don't know how many I killed - I who count everything, that was one thing I didn't count.

But I had only known the absurd, and I think that made me profoundly different from them

what does it matter if I've become mute in a world where there is no one to talk to?

I wondered what would make me stop, whether it would be hunger, sleep or boredom – in other words, what prompts decisions when you are utterly alone.

Talking is existing.

We came to the conclusion that they left you here because any decision can be analysed, and that their lack of decision indicated the only thing they wanted us to know, which is that we must know nothing.

I only know the stony plain, wandering, and the gradual loss of hope. I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct. Perhaps, somewhere humanity is flourishing under the stars, unaware that a daughter of its blood is ending her days in silence. There is nothing we can do about it.