Seated opposite me in the railway carriage, the elderly lady in the fox-fur shawl was recalling some of the murders that she had committed over the years.
Tell a story often enough and it becomes the truth.
You wear the right outfit and you feel like the person you’re pretending to be.
Standing there in your uniform,’ she continued, ’as if it makes you something special. Not even caring what it means really. What it stands for.
I blame Steve Jobs. And that Zuckerberg fellow. All those clever little psychopaths who couldn’t get laid in high school but make up for their sexual inadequacy by inventing technology that destroys humanity. They’re the Oppenheimers of the twenty-first century.
You were a terrible monster of a man and wherever you are you should feel shame for the way you lived your life.
If Dr. Allenby thought she had any concept of what guilt was, then she was fooling herself. Guilt was what kept you awake in the middle of the night or, if you managed to sleep, poisoned your dreams. Guilt intruded upon any happy moment, whispering in your ear that you had no right to pleasure. Guilt followed you down streets, interrupting the most mundane moments with remembrances of days and hours when you could have done something to prevent tragedy but chose to do nothing.
That was guilt.
True horror is all the more potent for being implicit.
Ah those people”, said Father, nodding his head smiling slightly. “Those people... well, they are not people at all, Bruno”.
Accept the situation in which you find yourself and everything will be so much easier.
I felt as if I might laugh out loud. It was an extraordinary way to refer to six years of war, countless millions of deaths, and all the broken places that had been left behind.
Remember, my young friend, life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practise.’ He winked at me. ‘Forster.
I’ve known violence, I’ve known bigotry. I’ve known shame and I’ve known love. And somehow, I always survive.
The powers that be, the Great Unelected Consciences of the World, didn’t approve of what she said and that was the end of her.
I understand that some people prefer the third person plural for a pronoun,’ he replied, having recently interviewed a pop singer on his show who’d insisted upon this, leading one of the cameramen to be fired for calling them Sibyl, after the Sally Field movie about the woman with multiple personalities.
Those pints won’t drink themselves.
I’m educating strangers on how they can live better lives. And making sure that those with the wrong opinions are held to account.
By doing nothing, you did everything. By taking no responsibility, you bear all responsibility.
People that are, you know, constantly alert to every injustice in society, every perceived slight, and who are just desperate to let you know when they’ve found one. They seek them out with all the urgency of truffling pigs.
It’s no longer a fiction, Gretel. Tell a story often enough and it becomes the truth.