The Colonel Quotes

“How can an entire nation endure so many long silences and so many unspoken words?”
― Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel

“Who am I trying to fool? I'm well aware that at every stage of history there have been crimes against humanity, and they couldn't have happened without humans to commit them. The crimes that have been visited on my children have been committed, and still are being committed, by young people just like them, by people stirring up their delusions, giving them delusions of grandeur. So why do I imagine that people might improve? Everything going on around us seems to indicate that the values our forebears passed down to us no longer apply. Instead, we have sown the seeds of mistrust, scepticism and resignation, which will grow into a jungle of nihilism and cynicism, a jungle in which you will never find the courage to even mention the names of goodness, truth and common humanity, a corp that is now bearing fruit with remarkable speed. We're obliged to dig our own children's graves, but what's even more shocking is that these crimes are creating a future in which there is no place for truth and human decency. Nobody dare to speak truth anymore. Oh, my poor children ... we are burying you, but you should realize that we are also digging a grave for our future. Can you hear me?”
― Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel

“A man without hope is nothing but an insect, a mindless creature with no future. And a man without a future can only go backwards.”
― Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel

“I'm a stranger in my own home! The tragedy of our whole country is the same: we are all alienated, strangers in our own land. It's tragic. The odd thing is that we have never got used to it. Yet, woe betide us we do. The irony is that, if you really want to be seen as a good Iranian, and especially if you aspire to high office in this country, you first have to be a foreigner, someone who wasn't born here at all. On the other hand, if you were born and bred here and try to remain true to yourself, your country and your people, then alienation is the most lenient punishment you expect.”
― Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel

“And in the end you die, but you don't take that feat with you to the grave as you should. No, you pass it on to the next generation.”
― Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel

“What kind of mortuary is this, anyway? It hasn't even got electricity. This sort of town needs more and more of it, what with all the migrants, refugees, and war wounded, not to mention all the executions that are taking place, and all those young comrades on the run...”
― Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel

“People who are drowning in a sea of problems and have lost all sense of self-worth often grasp at egotism and alienation from everything outside themselves as their only point of fixity, and this can help anchor and fortify them--if only to the point of madness. This is what it can come to, then, if you live in a hostile environment and have lost all your dignity. (61)”
― Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel

“They seemed to be high on some lethal drug, but the colonel saw no need to be afraid, for there was nothing left in him for that drunken mob to destroy. What was there to fear now?”
― Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel

“But a coward cannot kill in cold blood. A coward usually talks about humanity and morals, to hide his fear behind such waffle. Such people are just chicken.”
― Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel

“Farzaneh was aflame and her wailing melted everyone's hearts. Parvaneh had lost control of herself and was flapping madly around her brother, while Masoud got up off his knees beside his brother, clenched his fists, like two balls of fire, to his head and screamed: ``I'll kill them, I'll kill the bastards who killed my brothers...''. His rallying cry was taken up by the crowd, and from that point on Mohammad-Taqi's corpse was no longer ours - it has become public property.”
― Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel

“But no-one has the right to undermine or obstruct the hopes and aspirations of the young on the basis of one's own experience. It is quite wrong to be a doom-monger. No, one should keep one's peace and just nod one's head in agreement. To launch young people on their way, one should provide them with all the space and opportunities that one can and then leave the rest up to them and up to luck. That is what I did for my children.”
― Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel

“If you want to retain sanity, the only thing you can do is look on without letting go of your mind, So that is what the colonel did, sure in the knowledge that he was in full control of his faculties and that his brain was in full working order, whatever people might be saying about him behind his back.”
― Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel