Night Thoughts Quotes

“Revenge and punishment both imply, “Even if I’d been you, and I’d had your life, I would never have done what you did.” And that in turn implies, “I wouldn’t have done it, because I’m better than you.” But the person who says, “I’m better than you” is taking a serious step in a very dangerous direction. And the person who says, “Even if I’d had your life, I would never have done what you did” is very probably wrong.”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts

“She knows very well that the way to find happiness in this world is not to hate your life but to somehow learn how to accept your life. Take pride in your work, whatever it is. Derive whatever pleasure you can from whatever surrounds you—the sky, the people you like, the light falling on the brick wall.”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts

“Revenge and punishment both imply, "Even if I'd been you, and I'd had your life, I would never have done what you did." And that in turn implies, "I wouldn't have done it, because I'm better than you." But the person who says, "I'm better than you," is taking a serious step in a very dangerous direction. And the person who says, "Even if I'd had your life, I would never have done what you did," is very probably wrong.”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts

“But I've actually lived long enough now to have figured out what the word "morality" really refers to. I do know what it means, although it's pretty outrageous. It refers to a very simple thought: we shouldn't accept this principle that strong inevitably triumphs over weak. Luck has distributed strength in an arbitrary way: this lion is stronger, this elk is stronger, this group of people lives closer to the river, this group of people lives farther away. Luck has given the person with the penis, the people with the guns, a bit more strength, and so they've trampled over everyone else. Morality says we shouldn't accept that. For the bigger kid to take the smaller kid's candy bar is not right; it's wrong. And if the bigger kid gives that candy bar to me, the process by which I received it was wrong, and it's wrong for me to have it, and it's wrong for me to eat it.”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts

“Religion can mean solace and serenity, a kind of security, a private small garden of kindness in a desert of cruelty that seems to stretch out as far as they can see.”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts

“Through no fault of their own, most unlucky people are born into bad circumstances from which no amount of ingenuity will allow them to escape. But also through no fault of their own, most lucky people are born into good circumstances, from which they may or may not want to escape but from which in any case they rarely do escape. Most of these lucky people lack the originality or the boldness or the imagination that would be required in order for them to give up their pleasant life and devote themselves to the welfare of humanity. And most are never provided with the intellectual tools they would need in order to see through the worship of greed and the self that the influential figures in their privileged environment are eager to teach them, and so they become greedy and selfish people.”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts

“...I’d say “the lucky” are a larger group. Roughly speaking, I’d say that if your city has not been bombed, if your loved ones have not been raped, tortured, or killed, if you’ve never been harassed or beaten by the police, if you’re not afraid to walk after dark on the street where you live, if you have a place to live in which you’re not unbearably cold in the winter or unbearably hot in the summer, if you eat two or three fairly healthy meals a day, and if you’re not regularly shouted at or threatened or punished by your boss or his managers at work, then you probably count as a lucky person....”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts

“As long as the world is divided into two groups, those who are lucky and exploit others, and those who are unlucky and are exploited by the lucky, there will always come a moment in one place or another when one of the unlucky people is going to say, “Wait—this is wrong.”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts

“But I’ve actually lived long enough now to have figured out what the word “morality” really refers to. I do know what it means, although it’s pretty outrageous. It refers to a very simple thought: we shouldn’t accept this principle that strong inevitably triumphs over weak.”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts

“It seems undeniable that once it beings, violence leads us into some sort of madness, some terrifying maze inside the mind in which we become lost, and we don't know what's happening or what we ourselves are doing.”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts

“It was surprising enough when strangely dressed religious leaders took over the government of such a large country as Iran. But now, these bin Ladenists? The tactics they've used are bloodthirsty, sadistic. They shamelessly show their pleasure when their enemies are killed. They touch their victims, they look at their faces. They film the killings! These are all things that we would never do--well, except on very rare occasions, like the time we killed bin Laden himself.”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts