29 quotes found
“It is better to burn than to disappear.”
“In the long run one gets used to anything.”
“After awhile you could get used to anything.”
“To stay or to go, it amounted to the same thing.”
“There is not love of life without despair about life.”
“If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.”
“It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open ...”
“Mother used to say that however miserable one is, theres always something to be thankful for. And each morning, when the sky brightened and light began to flood my cell, I agreed with her.”
“And, on a wide view, I could see that it makes little difference whether one dies at the age of thirty or threescore and tensince, in either case, other men and women will continue living, the worl...”
“...he said firmly, "God can help you. All the men Ive seen in your position turned to Him in their time of trouble." "Obviously," I replied, "they were at liberty to do so, if they felt like it." I...”
“As if this great outburst of anger had purged all my ills, killed all my hopes, I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign ind...”
“That was unthinkable, he said; all men believe in God, even those who reject Him. Of this he was absolutely sure; if ever he came to doubt it, his life would lose all meaning.”
“I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn't mine anymore, but one in which I'd found the simplest and most lasting joys: the smells of summer, the part of town I loved, a certain evening sky, ...”
“How did I picture the life after the grave? I fairly bawled out at him: "A life in which I can remember this life on earth. That's all I want of it.”
“I hope the dogs don't bark tonight. I always think it's mine”
“I explained to him, however, that my nature was such that my physical needs often got in the way of my feelings.”
“The priest gazed around my cell and answered in a voice that sounded very weary to me. 'Every stone here sweats with suffering, I know that. I have never looked at them without a feeling of anguish...”
“I didnt like having to explain to them, so I just shut up, smoked a cigarette, and looked at the sea.”
“I couldn't quite understand how an ordinary man's good qualities could become crushing accusations against a guilty man.”
“He was expressing his certainty that my appeal would be granted, but I was carrying the burden of a sin from which I had to free myself. According to him, human justice was nothing and divine justi...”
“As he himself said, "I will prove it to you, gentlemen, and i will prove it in two ways. First in the blinding clarity of the facts, and second, in the dim light cast by the mind of his criminal soul.”
“For the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myselfso like a brother reallyI felt that I had been h...”
“So it came to this, that against the grain, no doubtthe condemned man had to hope the apparatus was in good working order! This, I thought, was a flaw in the system; and, on the face of it, my view...”
