Quotes from Vasily Grossman

What does a woman who has lost her children care about a philosopher's definitions of good and evil? But what if life itself is evil?

There was something terrible, but also something sad and melancholy in this long cry uttered by the Russian infantry as they staged an attack. As it crossed the cold water, it lost its fervour. Instead of valour or gallantry, you could hear the sadness of a soul parting with everything that it loved, calling on its nearest and dearest to wake up, to lift their head from their pillows and hear for the last time the voice of a father, a husband, a son or a brother...

There is a terrible similarity between the principles of Fascism and those of contemporary physics. Fascism has rejected the concept of a separate individuality, the concept of 'a man', and operates only with vast aggregates. Contemporary physics speaks of the greater or lesser probability of occurrences within this or that aggregate of individual particles. And are not the terrible mechanics of Fascism founded on the principle of quantum politics, of political probability?

The nationalism of a small nation can, with treacherous ease, become detached from its roots in what is noble and human. It then become pitiful, making the nation appear smaller rather than greater. It is the same with nations as with individuals; while trying to draw attention to the inadequacies of others, people all too often reveal their own.

Freedom is the direct opposite of necessity; freedom is necessity overcome.

Bach felt the beauty and sadness of the moment. These men who defied the power of the Russian heavy artillery, these coarse, hardened soldiers who were dispirited by their lack of ammunition and tormented by vermin and hunger had all understood at once that what they needed more than anything in the world was not bread, not bandages, not ammunition, but these tiny branches twined with useless tinsel, these orphanage toys.

In spite of everything, life would go on, the life of a nation making its way through a land of stone.

What constitutes the character of a nation is the character of many individual human beings; every national character is in essence, simply human nature. All the worlds nations, therefore, have a great deal in common with one another. The foundation of any national character is human nature. The foundation of national character is simply a particular colouring taken on by human nature, a particular crystallisation of it.

The law fights against life, and life fights against the law.

Among a million Russian huts you will never find even two that are exactly the same. Everything that lives is unique. It is unimaginable that two people, or two briar-roses, should be identical . . . If you attempt to erase the peculiarities and individuality of life by violence, then life itself must suffocate.

Let's be kind and attentive to the individual man - whether he's a bishop, a peasant, an industrial magnate, a convict in the Sakhalin Islands or a waiter in a restaurant. Let's begin with respect, compassion and love for the individual - or we'll never get anywhere.

Everything that lives is unique. It is unimaginable that two people, or two briar-roses, should be identical . . . If you attempt to erase the peculiarities and individuality of life by violence, then life itself must suffocate.

He had never killed a child; he had never arrested anyone. But he had broken the fragile dyke that protected the purity of his soul from the seething darkness around him. The blood of the camps and the ghettos had gushed over him and carried him away... There was no longer any divide between him and the darkness; he himself was part of the darkness.

Grossman, perhaps tiring slightly of journalism, seems to have longed to convey his thoughts and feelings about the war in fictional form. At this stage, when the Soviet Union was fighting for its life, his ideas were very close to that of the Party line. It was only at Stalingrad, a year later, that his view of the Stalinist regime began to change. This outline, may well have formed part of the idea for The People Immortal, his novel written and published the following year...

No one has the right to lead other people like sheep. That's something even Lenin failed to understand. The purpose of a revolution is to free people. But Lenin just said: "In the past you were led badly, I'm going to lead you well.

What's really terrifying is when you realize that bureaucracy isn't simply a growth on the body of the State. If it were only that, it could be cut off. No, bureaucracy is the very essence of the State.

Does human nature undergo a true change in the cauldron of totalitarian violence? Does man lose his innate yearning for freedom? The fate of both man and the totalitarian State depends on the answer to this question. If human nature does change, then the eternal and world-wide triumph of the dictatorial State is assured; if his yearning for freedom remains constant, then the totalitarian State is doomed.

No artist has painted A true portrait of Lenin Ages to come will complete Lenin's unfinished portrait. Did Poletaev understand the tragic implication of his lines about Lenin?

At war a Russian man puts on a white shirt. He may live in sin, but he dies like a saint.

How can you tear something out of your heart? Your heart isn't made of paper and your life isn't written down in ink. You can't erase the imprint of years.

Uno de los medios de los que se sirve el fascismo para actuar sobre el hombre es la total, o casi total, ceguera. El hombre no cree que vaya al encuentro de su propia aniquilación.

We should call on the Creator to show more modesty. He created the world in a frenzy of excitement. Instead of revising his rough drafts, he had his work printed straightaway. What a lot of contradictions there are in it. What a log of typing errors, inconsistencies in the plot, passages that are too long and wordy, characters that are entirely superfluous. But it is painful and difficult to cut and trim the living cloth of a book written and published in too much of a hurry

The hide was being flayed off the still living body of the Revolution so that a new age could slip in to it; as for the red bloody meat, the steaming innards - they were being thrown onto the scrapheap. The new age needed only the hide of the Revolution - and this was being flayed off people who were still alive. Those who slipped into it spoke the language of the Revolution and mimicked it's gestures, but their brains, lungs, livers and eyes were utterly different.

And in this silence of the dumb and these speeches of the blind, in this medley of people bound together by the same grief, terror and hope, in this hatred and lack of understanding between men who spoke the same tongue, you could see much of the tragedy of the twentieth century.