By Category: Violence

“...teachers of children in the United States of America wrote this date on blackboards again and again, and asked the children to memorize it with pride and joy: 1492.

The teachers told the children that this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them. ”

-Breakfast Of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut

~

“I expected something pathological, but I did not expect the depth, the violence, and the almost intolerable beauty of the disease.”

-Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut

~

“How do you describe the sorting out on arriving at Auschwitz, the separation of children who see a father or mother going away, never to be seen again? How do you express the dumb grief of a little girl and the endless lines of women, children and rabbis being driven across the Polish or Ukrainian landscapes to their deaths? No, I can't do it. And because I'm a writer and teacher, I don't understand how Europe's most cultured nation could have done that. For these men who killed with submachine-guns in the Ukraine were university graduates. Afterwards they would go home and read a poem by Heine. So what happened?”

-Elie Wiesel

~

“The snow came down last night like moths
Burned on the moon; it fell till dawn,
Covered the town with simple cloths.

Absolute snow lies rumpled on
What shellbursts scattered and deranged,
Entangled railings, crevassed lawn.

You think: beyond the town a mile
Or two, this snowfall fills the eyes
Of soldiers dead a little while.”

-First Snow In Alsace, Richard Wilbuar

~

“And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe out blood,
And only tears can heal.”

-The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde

~

“Each man kills the thing he loves.”

-The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde

~

“After the third barrage, I counted more than twenty bodies. One cyclist was shot in the back right below our balcony. There were two big puddles of blood on the Avenue of Eternal Peace. People carried the body of a little girl toward the back of the hotel. After twenty-three more minutes, a few people gathered up enough courage to approach the wounded. The soldiers let loose another blast, sending the would-be rescuers scurrying for cover. The crowd was enraged. I grimly kept track of the time. An hour later, the wounded were still on the ground, bleeding to death.

For the rest of the morning, and throughout the afternoon, this scene repeated itself over and over again. In all, I recorded eight long murderous volleys. Dozens died before my eyes. By midafternoon, the crowd was down to about five hundred maniacs who stood on the corner screaming, 'Kill Li Peng! Kill Li Peng!' Only when a steady rain began to fall at 4:15 did they finally drift away. The rain cleansed the street of blood. When it stopped, the crowds returned, and the soldiers fired again, and again, and many more people died.

I thought how strange it was that Beijingers didn't want to get wet, but they weren't afraid of getting killed.”

-Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now, Jan Wong

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