Great Throughts Treasury

"We are “influenced” by something which is close and similar tot he roots of our soul. Real influence is that which helps us be ourselves, that which elicits the hidden, the deepest secrets in ourselves."

"To be deceived open-eyed, and to on the spot join the big, common throng of liars - composed of ignorance, expedient apathy, and simple unashamed selfishness - and to exchange one big truth for the clever shrug of the shoulder of a veteran criminal."

"There is the ruthlessly long waiting, the nervous anxious waiting, ... the tedious waiting, that consumes and burns everything. When the order comes, the unit begins shelling. The villagers flee. The book ends with the cri de coeur of the young soldier narrator. This was what exile looked like, he thinks out loud, watching the Palestinians leaving. I had never been in the diaspora. I had never known what it was like, but people had spoken to me, told me, taught me, and repeatedly recited to me, from every direction ... exile. ... What, in fact, had we perpetrated here today?"