At Night All Blood is Black Quotes

“To translate is never simple. To translate is to betray at the borders, it’s to cheat, it’s to trade one sentence for another. To translate is one of the only human activities in which one is required to lie about the details to convey the truth at large. To translate is to risk understanding better than others that the truth about a word is not single, but double, even triple, quadruple, or quintuple. To translate is to distance oneself from God’s truth, which, as everyone knows or believes, is single.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“Until a man is dead, he is not yet done being created.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“Temporary madness, in war, is bravery’s sister.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“Any event that surprises a man has already been experienced by other men before him. The effects of all human possibilities have already been felt. Nothing that might happen to us here, as terrible or as felicitous as it might seem, is new. But what we experience is always new because every man is unique, the way every leaf and every tree is unique. Men share with each other the same lifeblood, but each feeds himself from it differently. Even if the new isn’t really new, it’s always new for those who, ceaselessly, wash up on the world’s shores, generation after generation, wave after wave. So, in order to find yourself in life, to not lose yourself on the path, you must listen to the voice of duty. To think too much about yourself is to falter. Whoever understands this secret has the potential to live in peace. But it’s easier said than done.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“Yes, I understood, God’s truth, that on the battlefield they wanted only fleeting madness. Madmen of rage, madmen of pain, furious madmen, but temporary ones. No continuous madmen. As soon as the fighting ends, we’re to file away our rage, our pain, and our fury. Pain is tolerated, we can bring our pain home on the condition that we keep it to ourselves.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“God's truth, each thing carries its opposite within.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“...I had been inhuman by obeying duty's voice. But I was now free to listen no longer, to no longer obey the voices that command us not to be human when we must.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“We never abandon those who gave us life.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“I AM THE SHADOW THAT DEVOURS ROCKS, mountains, forests, and rivers, the flesh of beasts and of men. I slice skin, I empty skulls and bodies. I cut off arms, legs, and hands. I smash bones and I suck out their marrow. But I am also the red moon that rises over the river, I am the evening air that rustles the tender acacia trees. I am the wasp and the flower. I am as much the wriggling fish as the still canoe, as much the net as the fisherman. I am the prisoner and his guard. I am the tree and the seed that grew into it. I am father and son. I am assassin and judge. I am the sowing and the harvest. I am mother and daughter. I am night and day. I am fire and the wood it devours. I am innocent and guilty. I am the beginning and the end. I am the creator and the destroyer. I am double.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“No one knows what I think. I am free to think whatever I want. And what I think is that people don't want me to think.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“That’s war: it’s when God lags behind the music of men, when he can’t untangle the threads of so many fates at the same time.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“My brothers in combat, white or black, need to believe that it isn’t the war that will kill them, but the evil eye. They need to believe it won’t be one of the thousands of bullets fired by the enemy from the other side that will randomly kill them. They don’t like randomness. Randomness is too absurd. They want someone to blame, they’d rather think that the enemy bullet that hits them was directed, guided by some cruel, malevolent, evil intent.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“The greatest secret he taught us was that it isn’t the man who controls events but events that control the man. Any event that surprises a man has already been experienced by other men before him. The effects of all human possibilities have already been felt. Nothing that might happen to us here, as terrible or as felicitous as it might seem, is new. But what we experience is always new because every man is unique, the way every leaf and every tree is unique. Men share with each other the same lifeblood, but each feeds himself from it differently. Even if the new isn’t really new, it’s always new for those who, ceaselessly, wash up on the world’s shores, generation after generation, wave after wave. So, in order to find yourself in life, to not lose yourself on the path, you must listen to the voice of duty. To think too much about yourself is to falter. Whoever understands this secret has the potential to live in peace. But it’s easier said than done.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“Only after you were gone did I finally begin to think. Only with your death, at dusk, did I know, did I understand that I would no longer listen to the voice of duty, the voice that commands, the voice that leads the way. But it was too late.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“His white belly is exposed, it rises and falls in jerks. The enemy from the other side gasps and screams, now in stark silence because of the gag I’ve cinched around his mouth. He screams in stark silence when I take all the insides of his belly and put them outside in the rain, in the wind, in the snow, or in the bright moonlight. If at this moment his blue eyes don’t dim forever, then I lie down next to him, I turn his face toward mine and I watch him die a little, then I slit his throat, cleanly, humanely. At night, all blood is black.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“Traduire, ce n’est jamais simple. Traduire, c’est trahir sur les bords, c’est maquignonner, c’est marchander une phrase pour une autre. Traduire est une des seules activités humaines où l’on est obligé de mentir sur les détails pour rapporter le vrai en gros. Traduire, c’est prendre le risque de comprendre mieux que les autres que la vérité de la parole n’est pas une, mais double, voire triple, quadruple ou quintuple. Traduire, c’est s’éloigner de la vérité de Dieu, qui, comme chacun sait ou croit le savoir, est une.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“Don't tell me that we don't need madness on the battlefield. God's truth, the mad fear nothing. The others, white or black, play at being mad, perform madness so that they can calmly throw themselves in front of the bullets of the enemy on the other side. It allows them to run straight at death without being too afraid. You'd have to be mad to obey Captain Armand when he whistles for the attack, knowing there's almost no chance you'll come home alive. God's truth, you'd have to be crazy to drag yourself screaming out of the belly of the earth.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“Since I have thought anything I want since then, I can admit everything to myself in the privacy of my mind. Yes, I told myself, that I must be a dëmm, an eater of the insides of men. But, I told myself immediately after thinking it, that I couldn't believe such a thing, that it wasn't possible. At that time it wasn't really me who was thinking. I'd left the door of my mind open to the thoughts of others, which I mistook for my own. I wasn't hearing myself think anymore, but was hearing the others who were afraid of me. You have to be careful when you believe you are free to think what you want, not to let in the thinking of others in disguise.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“I believe I understand that what’s written on high is only a copy of what man writes here below. God’s truth, I believe that God always lags behind us. It’s all He can do to assess the damage.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“We are more than brothers because we chose each other as brothers.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“Temporary madness makes it possible to forget the truth about bullets. Temporary madness, in war, is bravery’s sister. But when you seem crazy all the time, continuously, without stopping, that’s when you make people afraid, even your war brothers.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“To translate is to betray at the borders, it's to cheat, it's to trade one sentence for another. To translate is one of the only human activities in which one is required to lie about the details to convey the truth at large.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“I swear to you that I heard the story of the lion-sorcerer just before leaving for the war. This story, like all interesting stories, is full of clever innuendo. Whoever tells a well-known story like the one about the lion-sorcerer and the fickle princess might always be hiding another story beneath it. To be seen, the story hidden beneath the well-known story has to peak out a little bit. If the hidden story hides too well beneath the well-known story, it stays invisible. The hidden story has to be there without being there, it has to let itself be guessed at, the way a tight saffron-yellow dress lets the beautiful figure of a young girl be guessed at. It has to be transparent. When it’s understood by those for whom it is intended, the story hidden beneath the well-known story can change the course of their lives, can push them to transform a diffuse desire into a concrete act. It can heal them from the sickness of hesitation, no matter the expectations of an ill-intentioned storyteller.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“Men share with each other the same lifeblood, but each feeds himself from it differently. Even if the new isn’t really new, it’s always new for those who, ceaselessly, wash up on the world’s shores, generation after generation, wave after wave. So, in order to find yourself in life, to not lose yourself on the path, you must listen to the voice of duty. To think too much about yourself is to falter. Whoever understands this secret has the potential to live in peace. But it’s easier said than done.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“La nuit, tous les sangs sont noirs.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“The greatest secret he taught us was that it isn’t the man who controls events but events that control the man. Any event that surprises a man has already been experienced by other men before him. The effects of all human possibilities have already been felt. Nothing that might happen to us here, as terrible or as felicitous as it might seem, is new. But what we experience is always new because every man is unique, the way every leaf and every tree is unique. Men share with each other the same lifeblood, but each feeds himself from it differently. Even if the new isn’t really new, it’s always new for those who, ceaselessly, wash up on the world’s shores, generation after generation, wave after wave.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“Fula proverb: Until a man is dead, he is not yet done being created.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“Τα ανθρώπινα πλάσματα αναζητούν πάντα παράλογες ευθύνες για τα γεγονότα. Έτσι γίνεται. Είναι πιο απλό. […] οι σύντροφοί μου στη μάχη, Μαύροι και Λευκοί, έχουν ανάγκη να πιστεύουν ότι δεν είναι ο πόλεμος που μπορεί να τους σκοτώσει , αλλά το κακό μάτι. Έχουν ανάγκη να πιστεύουν ότι δεν θα τους σκοτώσει κατά τύχη μία από τις χιλιάδες σφαίρες που θα ρίξουν οι εχθροί από απέναντι. Δεν τους αρέσει το τυχαίο. Το τυχαίο παραείναι παράλογο. Θέλουν κάποιον υπεύθυνο, προτιμούν να σκέφτονται ότι την εχθρική σφαίρα που θα τους πετύχει την έχει κατευθύνει, την έχει οδηγήσει κάποιος κακός, μοχθηρός, κακόβουλος.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“Το να μεταφράζεις δεν είναι ποτέ κάτι απλό. Το να μεταφράζεις σημαίνει να προδίδεις στο όριο, σημαίνει να κάνεις ατιμίες, σημαίνει να παζαρεύεις μια φράση με μια άλλη. Το να μεταφράζεις είναι μια από τις ανθρώπινες δραστηριότητες όπου είσαι υποχρεωμένος να πεις ψέματα στις λεπτομέρειες για να εκφράσεις την αλήθεια σε γενικές γραμμές. Το να μεταφράζεις σημαίνει ότι παίρνεις το ρίσκο να καταλαβαίνεις καλύτερα από τους άλλους ότι η αλήθεια των λέξεων δεν είναι μία, αλλά διπλή, ακόμα και τριπλή, τετραπλή ή πενταπλή.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black

“Temporary madness makes it possible to forget the truth about bullets. Temporary madness, in war, is bravery’s sister.”
― David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black