Jayan Parameswaran

“We're often silent. We don't yell and we don't complain. We're patient, as always. Because we don't have the words yet. We're afraid to talk about it. We don't know how. It's not an ordinary experience, and the questions it raises are not ordinary. The world has been split in two: there's us, the Chernobylites, and then there's you, the others. Have you noticed? No one here points out that they're Russian or Belarussian or Ukrainian. We all call ourselves Chernobylites. "We're from Chernobyl." "I'm a Chernobylite." As if this is a separate people. A new nation.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

“How can an entire nation endure so many long silences and so many unspoken words?”
― Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel

“Nobody in the game uses their feet, but it’s football. I love how Americans can just claim something to be whatever they feel it is, despite clear evidence it’s not. Like a football game with nobody using any feet that takes forever.”
― Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings

“I told you. There’s nothing heroic here, nothing for the writer’s pen. I had thoughts like, It’s not wartime, why should I have to risk myself while someone else is sleeping with my wife? Why me again, and not him? To be honest, I didn’t see any heroes there. I saw nutcases, who didn’t care about their own lives, and I had enough craziness myself, but it wasn’t necessary. I also have medals and awards—but that’s because I wasn’t afraid of dying. I didn’t care! It was even something of an out. They’d have buried me with honors. And the government would have paid for it.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster