Writers sometimes cast themselves into the most profound depths of despair in order to master it and move on. — Imre Kertész

A person’s true means of expression is his life. Living the shame of life and maintaining silence, that was the greatest accomplishment of all.

He liked the style, that wry gallows humor armed with the semblance of omniscience; a most serviceable style it was, the dialect of the initiated, protecting them from their disillusionments, their fears, their well-concealed childish hopes.

You just sit here and tolerate it, the same way everything in this country is tolerated. Every deception, every lie, every bullet in the brains. Just as you are already tolerating bullets in the brains that will be implemented only after the bullet is put in your brains.