Eva > Eva's Quotes

“But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony--Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

“Dehumanization, which marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also (though in a different way) those who have stolen it, is a distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully human. This distortion occurs within history; but it is not an historical vocation. Indeed, to admit of dehumanization as an historical vocation would lead either to cynicism or total despair. The struggle for humanization, for the emancipation of labor, for the overcoming of alienation, for the affirmation of men and women as persons would be meaningless. This struggle is possible only because dehumanization, although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed.

Because it is a distortion of being more fully human, sooner or later being less human leads the oppressed to struggle against those who made them so. In order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both.

This, then, is the greatest humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“It's in the spirit of male loneliness to imagine that someone has to suffer for it.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

“No matter how obsessed you've been with your own vanishing, there will always be someone who wants you whole.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

“I like being myself. Myself and nasty.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“I have this vision: That I would finally come and find you. Scattered pieces of distance would not stand in my way. Not needing words; the barest of glimpses would suffice for you and me.”
― Franz Kafka

“Ако човек положи известни усилия да изглежда нормален, ще си спести доста време, през което спокойно да бъде такъв, какъвто иска да е.”
― Георги Господинов, Физика на тъгата

“I feel like my life has a lot of caves and they are all filled with your hair: a love story.”
― Melissa Broder, So Sad Today: Personal Essays

“It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“Autumn, whispering through the maples,
Pleaded: 'Die here with me!”
― Anna Akhmatova, Final Meeting: Selected Poetry

“Real tenderness can’t be confused, It’s quiet and can’t be heard.”
― Anna Akhmatova, Final Meeting: Selected Poetry of Anna Akhmatova

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood