Zainab

“The Russians opened his mouth and with a pair of pliers the Germans used for other purposes they seized his tongue and yanked. The pain made tears spring to his eyes and he said, or rather shouted, the word coño, cunt. With the pliers in his mouth the exclamation was transformed, coming out as the word kunst. The Russian who spoke German stared at him in surprise. The Sevillan shouted Kunst, Kunst, and wept in pain. The word Kunst, in German, means art, and that was how the bilingual soldier heard it and he said that the son of a bitch was an artist or something. The soldiers who were torturing the Sevillan removed the pliers along with a little piece of tongue and waited, momentarily hypnotized by the discovery. Art. The thing that soothes wild beasts.”
― Roberto Bolaño, Woes of the True Policeman

“Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live.”
― Franz Kafka, The Trial

“The right understanding of any matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter do not wholly exclude each other.”
― Franz Kafka, The Trial

“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos