Quotes from Primo Levi

The latrine is an oasis of peace.

Alongside the liberating relief of the veteran who tells us his story, I now felt in the writing a complex, intense, and new pleasure, similar to that I felt as a student when penetrating the solemn order of differentials calculus. It was exalting to search and find, or create, the right word, that is, commensurate, concise, and strong; to dredge up events from my memory and describe them with the greatest rigor and the least clutter.

The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to becomeerased as the years go by, but often they change, or even grow, by incorporating extraneous features. Judges know this very well: almost never do two eyewitnesses of the same event describe it in the same way and with the same words, even if the event is recent and if neither of them has a personal interest in distorting it.

Siamo chimici, cioè cacciatori

Qualcuno, molto tempo fa, ha scritto che anche i libri, come gli esseri umani, hanno un loro destino, imprevedibile, diverso da quello che per loro si desiderava e si attendeva.

man is a centaur, a tangle of flesh and mind, divine inspiration and dust.

Se comprendere è impossibile, conoscere è necessario, perché ciò che è accaduto, può ritornare, le coscienze possono nuovamente essere sedotte e oscurate: anche le nostre.

in this place everything is forbidden, not for hidden reasons, but because the camp has been created for that purpose.

For us, on the contrary, the Lager is not a punishment; for us, no end is foreseen and the Lager is nothing but a manner of living assigned to us, without limits of time, in the bosom of the Germanic social organism.

Today the only thing left of the life of those days is what one needs to suffer hunger and cold; I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself.

Se comprendere è impossibile, conoscere è necessario.

The truck went on its way in the night and Gedaleh shouted, laughing, If not this way, how? And if not now, when?

Non siamo malcontenti delle nostre scelte e di quello che la vita ci ha dato, ma quando ci incontriamo proviamo entrambi la curiosa e non sgradevole impressione ( ce la siamo più volte descritta a vicenda) che un velo, un soffio, un tratto di dado, ci abbia deviati su due strade divergenti che non erano le nostre

This fills me with anger, although I already know that it is in the normal order of things that the privileged oppress the unprivileged: the social structure of the camp is based on this human law.

Un montaggio è un lavoro che ognuno se lo deve studiare da sé, con la sua testa, e ancora meglio con le sue mani: Perché sa, le cose, a vederle da una poltrona oppuramente da un traliccio alto quaranta metri, fa differenza.

It is lucky that it is not windy today. Strange, how in some way one always has the impression of being fortunate, how some chance happening perhaps infinitesimal, stops us crossing the threshold of despair and allows us to live. It is raining, but it is not windy.

Man's capacity to dig himself in, to secrete a shell, to build around himself a tenuous barrier of defence, even in apparently desperate circumstances, is astonishing and merits a serious study.

I do not know what I will think tomorrow and later; today I feel no distinct emotion.

The triumph of human identity and worth over the pathology of human destruction glows virtually everywhere in Levi's writing.

He was a bricklayer; for fifty years, in Italy, America, France, then again in Italy, and finally in Germany, he had laid bricks, and every brick had been cemented with curses. He cursed continuously, but not mechanically; he cursed with method and care, acrimoniously, pausing to find the right word, frequently correcting himself and losing his temper when unable to find the word he wanted; then he cursed the curse that would not come.

Era questa, la carne dell'orso:ed ora che sono passati molti anni, rimpiango di averne mangiata poca, poiché, di tutto quanto la vita mi ha dato di buono, nulla ha avuto, neppure alla lontana, il sapore di quella carne, che è il sapore di essere forti e liberi, liberi anche di sbagliare, e padroni del proprio destino.

We were also born, Line said abruptly. Mendel questioned her with a look, and Line tried to clarify her thought: Born, expelled. Russia conceived us, nourished us, made us grow in her darkness, as in a womb; then she had labor pains, contractions, and threw us out; and now here we are, naked and new, like babies just born. Isn't it the same for you? Narische meidele, vos darst do freden? Mendel rebutted, feeling on his lips and affectionate smile and a light veil over his eyes.

Dat maakt me woedend, hoewel ik toch allang weet dat het in de orde der dingen ligt dat de bevoorrechten de niet-bevoorrechten onderdrukken: op die mensenwet berust de sociale structuur van het kamp.

Nessuno ebbe animo di venire a vedere che cosa fanno gli uomini quando sanno di dover morire.