The Committed (The Sympathizer #2)

by Viet Thanh Nguyen

And it struck us all then, the answer to humanity’s eternal question of Why? It was, and is, simply this: Why not?

What reeducation had taught me was that dedicated communists were like dedicated capitalists, incapable of nuance.

instead of making a sacrifice, I made the one thing that only human beings can make: an excuse. Whoever said the road to Hell was paved with good intentions had gotten it all wrong. If you looked more closely, you could see that the road to Hell was paved with excuses.

“The colonized is a persecuted person whose permanent dream is to become the persecutor.”

Federico García Lorca, assassinated by the Spanish fascists, once said, “I will always be on the side of those who have nothing and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace,”