Zendegi

“No book has ever been able to redress a single historical injustice. Neither will this one. It wasn't meant to in the first place. Nevertheless, it is a small, personal effort so people don't forget [[Sarajevo]] and what it was. It aims to bring the story of Sarajevo to the point where it was conceived and where it will end. To try-without being pretentious-to salvage, from under the often artificially construed and maintained myth about the city, the People of Sarajevo, those that never wanted to be mythologized or immortalized. Those that only wished to remain normal, people going about their business, in their own city, people whose simple wish wasn't granted. Those that never, not even at the end, managed to understand ordinary and simple things and kept asking questions like "Why are they doing this to us?" The last people on this planet to understand that life and death are not controlled by the heart and reason, kindness and happiness, but machinations and greed, force and barbarity”
― Zlatko Dizdarević, Portraits of Sarajevo

“Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian

“Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them.”
― Richard Wagner

“Each railroad tie in Hokkaido was nothing but the bluish corpse of a worker. Posts driven into the soil during harbor reclamations were laborers sick with beriberi buried alive like the ancient “human pillars.” The name for workers in Hokkaido was “octopus.” In order to stay alive, an octopus will even devour its own limbs. It was just like that! Here a primitive exploitation could be practiced against anyone, without any scruples. It yielded loads of profit. What’s more such doings were cleverly identified with “developing the national wealth,” and deftly rationalized away. It was very shrewdly done. Workers were starved and beaten to death for the sake of “the nation.”
― Takiji Kobayashi, The Crab Cannery Ship: and Other Novels of Struggle