J.C.

“Outside, the colonel was cheering, delighted by his first encounter with warfare, Inside, two Monuments Men bent over a four-hundered-year-old painting [by Peter Breughel the Elder] in the faint light of a newly arrived lamp. The first was kneeling on the ground, studying its surface like an archeologist in an Egyptian tomb or a medic with a wounded man. The second hunched behind him, concentrating on his notes. The soldiers, tired and dirty, huddled around them like the shepherds at the manger, staring silently at a painting of expressive faces and peasant villagers and at the two adult men in soldiers' garb fussing over every square centimeter of its surface.”
― Robert M Edsel, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History

“Some of us seem to imagine the more respectable a person is, the more reason to attack him”
― Philip K. Dick, The Man Who Japed

“There is not one type of German... There are many who were never Nazis, but remained silent out of fear. Nor is there one type of Nazi. There are those who went along to survive, or for career advancement, or out of a sheepish devotion to the status quo. Then there are the hardcases, the true believers. It is possible we will find what we are looking for only when the last true believer is dead.

- Lincoln Kirstien”
― Robert M Edsel, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History

“I changed my personality just like that. I became modest and reserved, even a little withdrawn, and after that there were lots of people who wanted to be my friend. not that we necessarily stayed friends very long, but still, I made the change because I realised something: that the sex you have with a man at your own suggestion is just never that good. After all, if you have to ask for sex, it means that the man isn't really into it, right? And guys are never sweet or gentle or thoughtful in bed if they're not really into it. There's nothing cute about their faces when they come, either, and you end up wondering what's the point of rubbing your flesh and organs together like that, having this thing flopping around inside you. It makes you feel even lonelier than if you were alone. And then, after he comes, the man makes an even worse face. What am I doing with a slut like this? That's what the expression on his face says.”
― Ryū Murakami, Piercing: A Novel