I'm the most communal person that exists and a very solitary person. So I think writing is a form of getting to the community and being alone, and it's the best of both possible worlds.
Ariel DorfmanThere's a tendency, especially among revolutionaries, to only show the good side of yourself and then when you come to power, the bad side comes out.
Ariel DorfmanYou want to free the world, free humanity, from oppression? Look inside, look sideways, look at the hidden violence of language. Never forget that language is where the other, parallel violence, the cruelty exercised on the body, originates.
Ariel DorfmanThose who have never suffered the iniquities of exile cannot possibly understand the significance, the gravitas, of a mattress.
Ariel DorfmanTorture presupposes, it requires, it craves the abrogation of our capacity to imagine others suffering, dehumanizing them so much that their pain is not our pain. It demands this of the torturer, placing the victim outside and beyond any form of compassion or empathy, but also demands of everyone else the same distancing, the same numbness.
Ariel Dorfman