The Twilight Zone Quotes

“I believe that evil is directly proportional to idiocy. I believe that the territory you roamed in anguish before you disappeared is ruled by idiots. It isn’t true that criminals are masterminds. It takes a vast amount of stupidity to assemble the parts of such grotesque, absurd, and cruel machinery. Pure brutality disguised as a masterplan. Small people, with small minds, who don’t understand the abyss of the other. They lack the language or tools for it. Empathy and compassion require a clear mind. Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, changing your skin, adopting a new face: these are all acts of genuine intelligence.”
― Nona Fernández, The Twilight Zone

“Se perdió como se pierden los recuerdos en la memoria.”
― Nona Fernández, La dimensión desconocida

“No importa lo que ves, importa lo que crees que ves.”
― Nona Fernández, La dimensión desconocida

“La empatía y la compasión son rasgos de lucidez, la posibilidad de ponerse en los zapatos del otro, de transmutar la piel y enmascararse con un rostro ajeno es un ejercicio de pura inteligencia.”
― Nona Fernández, La dimensión desconocida

“In spite of myself I got deeper and deeper in.
Suddenly I wasn't the person I used to be.

I could blame my bosses.
I could say that they were the ones who changed me.
But you always have a hand in what happens to you.

I know this because I've seen people who don't betray themselves.
People who might be up to their necks in shit and they don't break.”
― Nona Fernández, The Twilight Zone

“There is a section of the museum (of memory and human rights) that I like the best...Guides describe it as the heart of the museum. From an observation platform surrounded by candles, which aren't actually candles but little bulbs, more than a thousand photographs of many of the regime's victims are visible, hung high op on one wall. The photographs were donated by the victims' families, so we see them at home, at celebrations, at the beach, smiling at teh camera the way we all do when we want to leave a record of ourselves at our best. There are beautiful women who look like movie stars, who must have fixed themselves up flirtatiously, thinking they'll give the photo to a boyfriend, a lover.”
― Nona Fernández, The Twilight Zone

“When I was a girl, I was told that if I misbehaved the man with the sack would come for me. All disobedient children disappeared into that wicked old man's bottomless dark sack. But rather than frighten me, the story piqued my curiosity. I secretly wanted to meet the man, open his sack, climb into it, see the disappeared children, and get to the heart of the terrible mystery. I imagined it many times. I gave him a face, a suit, a pair of shoes. When I did, he became more disturbing, because normally the face I gave him belonged to someone I knew: my father, my uncle, the corner grocer, the mechanic next door, my science teacher. Any of them could be the old man with the sack. Even I could probably play the part, if I looked in the mirror and drew on a mustache.”
― Nona Fernández, The Twilight Zone

“There was a special report that night about a violent clash. Mario might have seen it on the neighbor's TV. As he heard voices and movement on the other side of the wall, he would've seen images of his house on the screen. There were police an armed agents walking the halls. On the dining room table where he'd eaten lunch a few hours ago, with the orange-flowered tablecloth, there were papers, lots of fake IDs, and a serious pile of weapons he'd never seen before. Grenades, ammunition, machine guns, pistols. If there had been a gun in the house, we would have used it to defend ourselves, thought Mario. Reporting live with a microphone in his hand, the announcer gestured at the weapons and documents, announcing that security forces had killed two dangerous terrorists in a deadly face-off.”
― Nona Fernández, The Twilight Zone

“I'm a lonely actress past her prime, drinking whiskey all day long and trying to decipher ancient images that repeat over and over again.”
― Nona Fernández, The Twilight Zone

“I believe that evil is directly proportional to idocy. I believe that the territory you roamed in anguish before you disappeared is ruled by idiots. It isn't true that criminals are masterminds. It takes a vast amount of stupidity to assemble the parts of such a grotesque, absurd, and cruel machinery. Pure brutality disguised as a master plan. Small people, with small minds, who don't understand the abyss of the other. They lack the language or tools for it. Empathy and compassion require a clear mind. Putting yourself in someone else's shoes, changing your skin, adopting a new face: these are all acts of genuine intelligence.”
― Nona Fernández, The Twilight Zone

“Expelled from the realm of that imaginary unknown, powerless to express myself in a language beyond my command, all I know is that there are other easier things for me to imagine. Things outside that dark zone, things I can cradle like a light to better follow this map. Things like that snapshot I want to believe José kept in his memory.”
― Nona Fernández, The Twilight Zone

“Boris Flores was three years older than my son and he crossed the city by bus, probably at night, hurting and broken after a month of being locked up. I can’t imagine what his mother felt when she saw the men come for him. I can’t even approach what went through her mind when she had to watch him being beaten and taken away. I don’t know how she was able to bear that entire month with no news, searching for him and imagining him. I don’t know how she must have reacted when she heard that he was back, when she saw him walk through the door and she was able to hug that seventeen-year-old body, battered by electric shocks and torture.”
― Nona Fernández, The Twilight Zone

“Quiero hablarle de cosas que yo he hecho, le dice el hombre mirándola a los ojos e imagino un leve temblor en su voz en el momento de pronunciar estas palabras que no son imaginadas. Quiero hablarle de desaparecimiento de personas.”
― Nona Fernández, The Twilight Zone

“porque cuando se trata del horror parece que las lógicas de la maquinaria no importan mucho.”
― Nona Fernández, La dimensión desconocida

“El joven Kinjo, que ahora es un viejo, dice que no es tan difícil transformarnos en lo que más tememos.”
― Nona Fernández, La dimensión desconocida

“O mejor, un pedazo de espacio exterior en el que naufragan perdidos, como astronautas sin conexión, todos estos rostros que fueron tragados por una dimensión desconocida.”
― Nona Fernández, La dimensión desconocida

“Ser estúpido es una elección personal y no necesariamente hay que llevar uniforme para ejercer ese maligno talento.”
― Nona Fernández, La dimensión desconocida