Gwethalyn Graham > Quotes

“If you choose to turn your back, you don't really have a say in what goes on behind it.”
― Gwethalyn Graham, Earth and High Heaven

“What he was saying was of no importance in itself, it had all been said before so many times, repeated parrot-like but with an air of acute perception and originality by one person after another, in one country after another, all the way down through history. After all, even Hitler was unable to think up anything really new on the subject of the Jews; he merely said what everybody else had been saying, only of course he said it louder and oftener, and put it a bit more strongly.”
― Gwethalyn Graham, Earth and High Heaven

“I don't realize what something really means until it suddenly walks up and hits me between the eyes. It isn't enough to think, you have to feel [...]”
― Gwethalyn Graham, Earth and High Heaven

“You can’t offer a series of vague generalizations referring to the supposed characteristics of approximately sixteen million people scattered over the earth’s surface — that was the pre-war figure, of course — as a valid explanation of your attitude toward a given individual. It doesn’t make sense.”
― Gwethalyn Graham, Earth and High Heaven

“A Jew describes another Jew simply as a human being; a Gentile describes him, first and foremost, as a Jew. Even if the Gentile doesn’t happen to be generalizing at the moment, nevertheless the whole description is given in terms of that one specific frame of reference, at least by implication, so that the finished portrait is, at best, distorted and somewhat less than life size. The highest compliment the average Gentile can pay a Jew, apparently, is to say that he doesn’t look or behave like one, so that although it may only be operating in the negative, the frame of reference is still there.”
― Gwethalyn Graham, Earth and High Heaven

“Manchester itself is a tribute to the Canadian talent for choosing a remarkably fine natural setting for a town, and then proceeding to ruin it as far as possible.”
― Gwethalyn Graham, Earth and High Heaven

“For almost three months you’ve been saying exactly what you liked and writing it all off under the heading of Father Knows Best. I’m not going to take three months, I’ll probably be finished in less than three minutes. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?”
― Gwethalyn Graham, Earth and High Heaven