Mohamedou Ould Slahi

“Whenever I realized that a guard was mean I pretended that I understood no English. I remember one cowboy coming to me with an ugly frown on his face: “You speak English?” he asked. “No English,” I replied. “We don’t like you to speak English. We want you to die slowly,” he said. “No English,” I kept replying. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction that his message arrived. People with hatred always have something to get off their chests, but I wasn’t ready to be that drain.”
― Mohamedou Ould Slahi, The Mauritanian

“We human beings take everything into consideration except for death; hardly anybody has death on his calendar.”
― Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Guantánamo Diary