Brian Janz > Brian's Quotes

“The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard

“It seemed to me at that moment that the peril hanging over us, the horrors we had seen at Babi Yar and elsewhere, made it all the more vital that we love each other, never hurt each other, always be truthful and gentle with each other. Helena understood that also. I could see it in her eyes, sense it in her sighs, and small cries, and reluctance to let go of me.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“Periodically the International Red Cross, or some neutral—the Swedes, for example—will demand an inspection of a concentration camp. They are brought here. And so they are shown the bank, the cinema, the bakery, the shops—and they are asked for their approval. What are those Jews complaining about? The Führer has given them this beautiful city."
"And they get away with it? The inspectors believe them?" Karl felt he was losing his mind.
"Maybe they want to believe," Felsher said.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.
If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”
― C.S. Lewis

“O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude...”
― George Eliot, O May I Join the Choir Invisible! And Other Favourite Poems

“All the ghettoes were being wiped out. The Germans were killing all the Jews.”
“But why? Why?” Helena asked.
“They don’t need reasons,” I said. “Any excuse works for them, because they have the guns and we don’t.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“If they want to kill us so desperately, then surely we are worthwhile, valid, of importance to the world.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“Do you ever feel that way?"
"Lonely?"
I search for the words. "Restless. As if you haven't really met yourself yet. As is you'd passed yourself once in the fog, and your heart leapt - 'Ah! There I Am! I've been missing that piece!' But it happens too fast, and then that part of you disappears into the fog again. And you spend the rest of your days looking for it."
He nods, and I think he's appeasing me. I feel stupid of having said it. It's sentimental and true, and I've revealed a part of myself I shouldn't have.
"Do you know what I think?" Kartik says at last.
"What?"
"Sometimes, I think you can glimpse it in another.”
― Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing

“Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew

“There aren't enough people left who get mad, plain mad. Not mad for a cause or a purpose, but just generally mad at all the bitchery and fraud. We take fraud for granted. We accept it. We like it. We want to be had. That's where he was different. He knew he was being cheated and he didn't like it one tiny bit, whether it was some old biddy doing him out of his two dollars or a corporation telling him they made better cathartics. He was the last angry man.”
― Gerald Green, The Last Angry Man

“They have fooled the world. Or else the world doesn’t give a damn. What confounds me is that no one seems to ask what right they have to put us in prisons at all. The assumption seems to be that it’s all right for Jews to be jailed and treated like dogs, provided they aren’t murdered.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“And the peace which I always found in the silence and emptiness of the moors filled me utterly”
― James Herriot

“The sight of that stupid boy’s terrorized eyes, the knowledge that he was finished, would never see a sunrise, or a girl’s face, or swim in a clear lake again—all these rattled me, made me wonder if I were the bloodthirsty avenger I’d imagined myself to be.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“I knew something about myself. Killing was indecent, depraved. I would not get used to it. One killed to survive, to keep one’s loved ones alive. No good attached to ending the lives of others. That Ukrainian kid had parents, a family, hopes. Like the millions of us now dying for no reason.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“A story once went the rounds of Israel to the effect that Ben-Gurion described me as 'the only man' in his cabinet. What amused me about is that he (or whoever invented the story) thought that this was the greatest compliment that could be paid to a woman. I very much doubt that any man would have been flattered if I had said about him that he was the only woman in the government!”
― Golda Meir

“They choose not to believe. Or they think we are lying. The crime is so enormous, they won't believe it. That's what the Germans are counting on.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“I don’t fear anyone, Russians, Americans, any of them. I did a job. I obeyed orders. I am a soldier.”
Kurt shoved me away. “You know, you may just manage to cheat the hangman with that kind of logic. But I hope to God you don’t.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.”
― Winston Churchill

“I am not so naïve as to believe that this slim volume will change the course of history or shake the conscience of the world. Books no longer have the power they once did. Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.”
― Elie Wiesel, Night

“He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”
― Dr. Seuss

“I still did not cry. I tried not to think of her. I had loved her too much, too intensely. In danger all the time, we had clung to one another. We had lived several lifetimes in our years together. Now she was gone.” - Gerald Green, Holocaust”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“We cannot indefinitely avoid depressing subject matter, particularly it it is true, and in the subsequent quarter century the world has had to hear a story it would have preferred not to hear - the story of how a cultured people turned to genocide, and how the rest of the world, also composed of cultured people, remained silent in the face of genocide. (v)”
― Elie Wiesel, Night

“I didn’t want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn’t know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I’d cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full.”
― Sylvia Plath

“Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.”
― C.S. Lewis

“I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't.”
― Stephen King, The Green Mile

“No one will believe a crime that big. People will say, "Impossible, they could not kill that many, torture that many, be so cruel." People will say that there are limits, that human beings stop at some point. But they didn’t stop.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“My mother had that talent for endowing any place she was with dignity and charm. She behaved elegantly and politely, and thus hoped to change the world.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say? That it was my job? My job?”
― Stephen King, The Green Mile

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
― Jim Henson