In the last camp they all ate grass, until the authorities forbade them to pull it up. They were accustomed to having the fruits of their little communal gardens stolen by the guards, after they had done all the work; but at the last camp everything was stolen.

[On the United States:] We are a wildly energetic people in our pursuit of pleasure, let alone in our pursuit of money, and we are very odd to look at as we go about our lives.

In more than half the nations of our world, torture certifies that the form of government is tyranny. Only tyranny, no matter how camouflaged, needs and employs torturers. Torture has no ideology.

Furthermore, they were constantly informed by all the camp authorities that they had been abandoned by the world: they were beggars and lucky to receive the daily soup of starvation.

Officialdom is hostile to inquiring outsiders.

Between his eyes, there were four lines, the marks of such misery as children should never feel. He spoke with that wonderful whisky voice that so many Spanish children have, and he was a tough and entire little boy.

It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.