Anyone who has obeyed nature by transmitting a piece of gossip experiences the explosive relief that accompanies the satisfying of a primary need.
Primo LeviPerhaps Kafka laughed when he told stories [. . . ] because one isn't always equal to oneself.
Primo LeviImagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often loses himself.
Primo LeviMy number is 174517; we have been baptized, we will carry the tattoo on our left arm until we die.
Primo LeviMonsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous areโฆthe functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.
Primo LeviThis cell belongs to a brain, and it is my brain, the brain of me who is writing; and the cell in question, and within it the atom in question, is in charge of my writing, in a gigantic minuscule game which nobody has yet described. It is that which at this instant, issuing out of a labyrinthine tangle of yeses and nos, makes my hand run along a certain path on the paper, mark it with these volutes that are signs: a double snap, up and down, between two levels of energy, guides this hand of mine to impress on the paper this dot, here, this one.
Primo Levi