Kenneth Cain > Quotes

“I'm not ready to let the youthful part of myself go yet. If maturity means becoming a cynic, if you have to kill the part of yourself that is naive and romantic and idealistic - the part of you that you treasure most - to claim maturity, is it not better to die young but with your humanity intact?”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex: And Other Desperate Measures

“The problem is that no matter how good your intentions, eventually you want to kill someone yourself.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“I was hell-bent on being an effective humanitarian in Cambodia and Somalia. But a naïve fog is finally lifting. Revealed is a train wreck of illusions, the depravity of someone else's war, the futility of a competence stillborn there. To understand this you have to become this.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“Iwent to school with African-American girls during my entire adolescence in Michigan and never noticed them as potential girlfriends, never even wanted to meet them. How did that happen? I'm nine thousand miles from home and a pernicious wall of segregation I never noticed in high school suddenly materialises. A young man should travel.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“Israelis are a mix of North African, Levantine, and Eastern European, which inflames the politics but does amazing things for the women.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“Meanwhile she's coldly interrogating me with her eyes. She's definitely in charge of this house and this moment. This must be Chloe.

She escorts me to a table full of people and presents me. She introduces them briefly. This one's from Morocco, that one from Italy, he's Persian--I'm not exactly sure what that means--this one's from "the UK." They're all in their twenties, poised and dismissive. They don't know or care who I'm supposed to be at home or where I went to school. They're measuring something else I can't see and don't understand.

They nod and turn back to each other. They seem to be waiting for a cue from Chloe to release them from having to feign interest. She introduces herself at substantially more length. Her father is Chinese and her mother is Swiss; she grew up in Hong Kong and "in Europe."

I grew up in Michigan and in Michigan. But she didn't ask.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“If blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeepers show up in your town or village and offer to protect you, run. Or else get weapons. Your lives are worth so much less than theirs.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“Be careful, he says, the official US position will be that they refuse to negotiate for hostages, but they may try to enlist the U.N. to do it.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“That’s my lesson in courage from Cambodia. The larger the threat, the more profound the doubts, the deeper you have to dig to find faith and conquer your fears.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“I was out on the Mekong again today when an entire village of refugees floated past. They had been attacked upriver by the Khmer Rouge. It was a pathetic sight, a flotilla of hundreds of ragged houseboats lashed together into giant rafts, drifting slowly. They were carrying their dead with them. I could see the bodies, wrapped in cloth. They stared at me blankly as I glided silently past, my multicolored sail bright in the sunlight. A small child waved but didn’t smile. Then a gentle gust caught my sail and I was gone.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“I push through the seething crowd to the UN car. The driver takes me past the slums by the harbor, up the hill to the lush suburbs where the rich, light-skinned Haitians live, far above poverty.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“He looked at me like I’m the delivery boy who wants to marry his sister. He then proceeded to make it very clear he knows what he’s doing and I don’t. It was relentless.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“Radio messages report rampant rumors of Khmer Rouge attacks. There is a curfew imposed at dusk. Every corner along the main road is occupied by tanks and armored personnel carriers, soldiers everywhere. The road to Vietnam is crawling with military, and everyone is nervous. But rather than being afraid to go outside, I find it thrilling. I’ve stepped into a TV show and any misadventure can be undone with a flick of the remote.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“When the French were here, they began cutting down the trees. Haiti’s dictators finished the job, leaving the topsoil to run into the ocean. All that splendid mahogany furniture in Paris salons and this is the result: a bald brown island with a muddy coast.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“Ordinary life will always be here; I can come back to it any time.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“went to school with African-American girls during my entire adolescence in Michigan and never noticed them as potential girlfriends, never even wanted to meet them. How did that happen? I’m nine thousand miles from home and a pernicious wall of segregation I never noticed in high school suddenly materializes before my eyes, ten years after the fact. A young man should travel.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“My classroom is overflowing with eager students. Dusty, grizzled peasants in flip-flops sit on their haunches next to the chickens, in rapt attention as I teach an introduction to democracy, struggling to explain concepts like ‘liberty,’ ‘dignity of the individual,’ and ‘the consent of the governed.’ It’s a remarkable sight and makes you realize the power of these ideas: we are literally exporting democracy. Maybe you have to be overseas to see the catastrophe of the absence of democracy in order to appreciate it. All that crap I learned in law school starts to make sense.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“There are used condoms everywhere and no place to dispose of them, so I lift an edge of the mattress and kick them all under. The afternoon is passed in typical fashion – having been here two days, I already know what is typical. We smoke, we listen to Bob Marley, we smoke some more, and occasionally we talk. Mostly we talk about Bob Marley. We are on our third or fourth joint of the afternoon when one of the guys asks, ‘Do you know Bob Marley?’ ‘Bob Marley is dead,’ I tell him, although even as it comes out of my mouth, I’m thinking maybe he’s not. I think to myself, he is dead, isn’t he? Yeah, he’s dead for sure.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“But then the friends are saying good night, shaking my hand, smiling. Off into the night they go and James and I are left alone again. I realize one of us has to make a move or we are never getting any sleep tonight. I move over to the mattress and lie down. I let my sarong slip off to the side. I let my bikini bottom show. He’s busy, moving buckets from one side of the room to the other, shaking some dirt off the bottom of one, moving another just so. I’m wondering if this is some kind of Masai feng shui, or if he’s avoiding joining me. I don’t press him; I let him go on with whatever he is doing. A nervous man is a wonderful thing. It gives a woman all the power, but it only lasts so long, so I try to enjoy it, this moment of feigned control and confidence on my part.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“I seek work of moral significance.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“lot of the UN staff call themselves human rights experts but need a shoulder to cry on each time there’s a killing. They belong in an office in Switzerland. Many of my French friends feign weary resignation whenever violence erupts, but that attitude was picked up on the cheap in some smoke-filled café. They haven’t ever struggled and failed, haven’t earned their cynicism. Ken’s problem isn’t cynicism, it’s optimism out of control.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“But what does a woman expect for her money? Why do we need to first be made to feel comfortable, flirted with, seduced? Why do we need to create the false sense of emotional ties? Why couldn’t we just say, okay, that cave over there, we go in, we fuck, hand over some money, and go on with our lives? Why do I feel so guilty? The feeling that I have used and kicked to the curb another human being won’t leave me.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“There's a hostage crisis and I'm a bureaucrat.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures) : True Stories from a War Zone

“drag Mr. Karim to the car to look for ice. We drive up one long, dark street after another. We slow down next to pedestrians and ask them, ‘Ice? Ice?’ They look at us blankly. We get out of the car and approach men laying fish out on the sidewalk to dry. ‘Ice?’ Wrapping our arms around our bodies, we mime shivering to get the ice idea across. How do you explain ice? How do you explain shivering to people who can’t even imagine what a cold day feels like? Others come around and watch the spectacle.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“The building is buzzing. Offices overflow with staff from every corner of the earth. Soldiers in colorful military uniforms move with martial discipline but stop smartly in the hall to let secretaries wrapped in Cambodian silk pass. Police in blue berets brief earnest young lawyers in khakis. Everyone has a military-issue radio glued to their ear. It looks like it could be a colonial administration in India or Kenya, except instead of British rule, it’s the whole world, and instead of imperial occupation, we’ve invaded in the service of peace.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“Everyone hates the Bulgarians. The UN pays countries cash to send soldiers on peacekeeping missions. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Bulgaria lost its subsidies and was broke. The Bulgarian government wanted money but didn’t want to send their best-trained troops. So, the story goes, they offered inmates in the prisons and psychiatric wards a deal: put on a uniform and go to Cambodia for six months, you’re free on return. All you have to do is stand guard and give away food, they said, the UN is not a real military. A battalion of criminal lunatics arrives in a lawless land. They get drunk as sailors, rape vulnerable Cambodian women, and crash their UN Land Cruisers with remarkable frequency.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“The UN’s mission here is to restore order, Foot says. Our part of the job is to kick-start the judicial system, and the Mogadishu Central Prison is a good place for you to start. Aidid’s militia is in control there. He holds prisoners because they attract resources, they’re an economic and military asset. It’s too dangerous for lawyers to get to the courthouse and there’s no money to pay for judges. So there are no trials and the inmates languish, permanently untried and unconvicted. In the meantime, prisoners are dying of every imaginable tropical disease.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“This is a UN bus?’ I ask. One of the Somali guys with the guns comes up behind me. As I stand there in the aisle, ready to punch the silent fat guy in the head, the Somali gunman, nodding and smiling, says to me, ‘Yeah, UN, UN.’ ‘Three kids armed with AK-47s, that’s some way to greet people,’ I tell the fat guy. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘welcome to Mogadishu.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“I’m bored with the routine of a late breakfast of mangos and toast, a long day lying hot and sweaty under a palm tree, and an evening of ‘African cultural dance’ staged for the tourists by disenchanted locals, followed by a nightly poolside barbecue of big hunks of dead zebra and antelope. This is the Hotel Intercontinental’s idea of the African coastal experience. I have to get into town.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“Welcome to Haiti, Doctor. We need people like you here.’ If you need people like me, it’s because of people like you.”
― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone