Irena Pasvinter

“In the Vilnius ghetto, the news of German setbacks in the Soviet Union in the opening weeks of 1943 resulted in an upsurge of grim humour, as Herman Kruk recorded in his diary: A German asks a Jew to lend him 20 roubles. The Jew immediately takes the sum out of his pocket and gives it to him. The German wonders: ‘How can this be? You don’t know me at all, and you trust me with such a sum?’ I have the fullest trust in the Germans,’ answers the Jew. ‘You took Stalingrad and gave it back; you took Kharkov and gave it back. I’m sure that you will give me back my 20 roubles.’ What is the difference between General Rommel and a watch? A watch goes tick-tock and goes forward; Rommel goes tock-tick and goes backward … What city is the largest in the world? Stalingrad, because it took the Germans months to get from the outskirts to the centre.6”
― Prit Buttar, Centuries Will Not Suffice: A History of the Lithuanian Holocaust

“Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures. They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for me. I should infinitely prefer a book. - Mary”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own unorthodoxy. Good novels are written by people who are not frightened.”
― George Orwell, Inside the Whale: On Writers and Writing

“And as a fruit gradually ripening, your time will ripen, and by a natural process your interior and exterior will finally become smoothed out into one whole sheet.”
― Toshihiko Izutsu, The Interior and Exterior in Zen Buddhism