Tom Feiling > Quotes

“The war on drugs thrives on ignorance of drugs and misplaced faith in the power of the law to regulate human vice.”
― Tom Feiling

“Many educators are loth to admit that the pursuit of pleasure might be a valid reason for drug use, or to recognize young people's curiosity, their need to experiment, to take risks and define their own boundaries.”
― Tom Feiling, The Candy Machine: How Cocaine Took Over the World

“On the slab that enclosed one tomb was scrawled a question, 'This is not David. Is it Luna?' The disappeared of Puerto Berrio were names without bodies; the Ningun Nombre were bodies without names. It was only natural that the bereaved should try to put them together, in an attempt at normalizing the abnormal.”
― Tom Feiling, Short Walks from Bogotá: Journeys in the New Colombia

“I asked Giovanni how he squared violence and happiness. 'I think you have to be a bit stupid to be happy,' he told me. 'By stupid, I mean fatalistic, ignorant of your rights and deferential to the powerful.”
― Tom Feiling, Short Walks from Bogotá: Journeys in the New Colombia

“Los pajaros pioneered the 'necktie cut', whereby the tongue was pulled through the victim's slit throat, and 'the florist's cut', by which the victim's severed limbs were stuffed into his decapitated neck.”
― Tom Feiling, Short Walks from Bogotá: Journeys in the New Colombia