Marius

“Don't hurt anyone. Never bully people weaker than yourself. Help those in need. Some would say that these rules are obvious. But the truth is, the obvious is no longer obvious in today's world. What's worse is that some people even ask why. They don't understand why they shouldn't hurt other people. It's not a simple thing to explain. It's not logical. But if they read books they will understand. It's far more important than using logic to explain something. Human beings don't live alone, and a book is a way to show that. [...]
I think the power of books is that - they teach us to care about others. It's a power that gives people courage and also supports them in turn. [...]
Empathy - thats the power of books.”
― Sōsuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“One night, someone smeared the house of one of his neighbors with excrement—wrong address, apparently—a gesture whose combination of vindictiveness and clumsiness had all the hallmarks of the IRA.”
― Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

“The members of the abduction team had grown up, married, had families of their own. This was a cruel twist: some of the children could no longer remember what their mother had looked like, apart from the one surviving photo of her, but they still recognized the faces of the people who took her away. Once, Helen took her children to McDonald's and found herself staring at one of the women who she knew had taken her mother. The woman was there with her own family. She shouted at Helen to leave her alone.”
― Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

“Foul-Weather Jack: A ballad about John Byron went:

Brave he may be, deny it who can,
Yet Admiral John is a luckless man;
And the midshipmen's mothers cry, "Out, alack!
My lad has sailed with Foulweather Jack!”
― David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder