Quotes from Vasily Grossman

Minns en sak, sa hans överordnade, du har varken far, mor, bröder eller systrar, partiet är det enda du har. Och så förstärktes denna egendomliga, tärande känsla: i sin tanklöshet och i sin lydnad fann han inte svaghet utan i stället en hotfull styrka.

Uno Stato nazionalsocialista non poteva tollerare che la vita fluisse liberamente: essa andava guidata in ogni suo passo. Per indirizzare il respiro delle persone, il loro senso materno, un circolo di lettori, le fabbriche, il canto, l'esercito o le gite estive ci volevano dei capi, delle guide. La vita aveva perso il diritto di crescere come l'erba e di incresparsi come il mare.

Fue así, con una cadena milenaria, como el progreso ruso y la esclavitud rusa estaban ligados el uno al otro. Cada escalada hacia la luz ahondaba aún más el negro foso de la esclavitud.

No tsar, nor even the Tatars or German Fascists, ever signed such a decree. The decree meant the death by famine of the peasants of the Ukraine, the Don, and the Kuban. It meant the death of them and their children. Even

Había pensado alguna vez Lenin mientras hacía la Revolución que no sólo Rusia no iba a seguir los pasos de la Europa socialista sino que además la esclavitud rusa escondida en ella iba a traspassar las fronteras y a convertirse en la antorcha que iluminara las nuevas vías de la humanidad?

The strength and good sense of the people, their morality, their true wealth—all this will live forever, no matter how hard fascism tries to destroy it.

The morality of the people—this is the measure of free, useful, creative labour.

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

And the greatest tragedy of our age is we don't listen to our consciences. We don't say what we think. We feel one thing and do another.

There's nothing more difficult than saying goodbye to a house where you've suffered.

In the cruel and terrible time in which our generation has been condemned to live on this earth, we must never make peace with evil. We must never become indifferent to others or undemanding of ourselves.

In great hearts the cruelty of life gives birth to good.

I don't want you to be young and beautiful. I only want one thing. I want you to be kind-hearted - and not just towards cats and dogs.

Man and fascism cannot co-exist. If fascism conquers, man will cease to exist and there will remain only man-like creatures that have undergone an internal transformation. But if man, man who is endowed with reason and kindness, should conquer, then Fascism must perish, and those who have submitted to it will once again become people.

There are people whose souls have just withered, people who are willing to go along with anything evil - anything so as not to be suspected of disagreeing with whoever is in power.

I don't believe in your "Good". I believe in human kindness.

Ivan tells Anna: "I used to imagine that being embraced by a woman . . . as something so wonderful that it would make me forget everthing . . . [But] happiness, it turns out, will be to share with you the burden I can't share with anyone else.

Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness.

Why do people have memories? It would be easier to die - anything to stop remembering.

It is the writer's duty to tell the terrible truth, and it is a reader's civic duty to learn this truth. To turn away, to close one's eyes and walk past is to insult the memory of those who have perished.

The history of humanity is the history of human freedom...Freedom is not, as Engels thought, "the recognition of necessity." Freedom is the opposite of necessity. Freedom is necessity overcome. Progress is, in essence, the progress of human freedom. Yes, and after all, life itself is freedom. The evolution of life is the evolution of freedom.

The true champions of a nation's freedom are those who reject the limitations of stereotypes and affirm the rich diversity of human nature to be found.

neither fate, nor history, nor the anger of the State, nor the glory or infamy of battle has any power to affect those who call themselves human beings. No, whatever life holds in store --- hard-won glory, poverty and despair, or death in a labor camp --- they will live as human beings and die as human beings, the same as those who have already perished; and in this alone lies man's eternal and bitter victory over all the grandiose and inhuman forces that ever have been or will be...

He was endowed with the extraordinary powers of endurance characteristic of madmen and simpletons.