“Ad aver dato fastidio alle organizzazioni criminali è il mio lettore, non sono io. Il mio lettore è ciò che loro non vogliono, il fatto che in questo momento ne stiamo parlando, che ne hanno parlato tutti i giornali, che continuano ad uscire libri, che continuano a nascere documentari, è tutto questo che loro non vogliono, è l'attenzione su di loro, sui loro nomi, soprattutto sui loro affari.”
“Everyone I know is either dead or in jail. I want to become a boss. I want to have supermarkets, stores,
factories, I want to have women. I want three cars, I want respect when I go into a store, I want to have
warehouses all over the world. And then I want to die. I want to die like a man, like someone who truly
commands. I want to be killed.”
“Sea lo que sea que hagas, será siempre una equivocación por un motivo u otro. Esa es la verdadera soledad.”
“Era o Sistema que alimentava o grande mercado internacional da moda, o enorme arquipélago da elegância italiana. Cada recanto do globo fora atingido pelas grifes, pelos homens, pelos produtos do Sistema. Sistema, um termo aqui conhecido por todos, mas que em alguns lugares ainda está por ser decifrado, uma referência desconhecida para quem não conhece as dinâmicas do poder da economia do crime. Camorra é uma palavra inexistente, para policiais. É usada pelos magistrados, pelos jornalistas, pelos cineastas. É uma palavra que faz rir seus filiados, é uma indicação genérica, um termo para estudiosos, relegado à dimensão histórica. O termo em que se definem os pertences a um clã é Sistema: "Pertenço ao Sistema de Secondigliano". Um termo eloquente, um mecanismo mais do que uma estrutura. A organização criminosa coincide diretamente com a economia, a dialética comercial é a estrutura dos clãs.”
“Saber, entender, se convierte en una necesidad. La única posible para considerarse aún hombres dignos de respirar.”
“Todas las mercancías tienen un origen oscuro. Es la ley del capitalismo.”
“The firepower uncovered in March 2005 in Sant’Anastasia, a town at the foot of Vesuvius, was
stunning. The discovery came about partly by chance, and partly by the lack of discipline of the arms
traffickers: customers and drivers started fighting on the street because they couldn’t agree on the
price. When the carabinieri arrived, they removed the interior panels of the truck parked near the
brawl, discovering one of the largest mobile depots they had ever seen. Uzis with four magazines,
seven clips, and 112 380-caliber bullets, Russian and Czech machine guns able to fire 950 shots a
minute. (Nine hundred fifty shots a minute was the firing power of American helicopters in Vietnam.)
Weapons for ripping apart tanks and entire divisions of men, not for Camorra family fights on the
slopes of Mount Vesuvius. Almost new, well-oiled, rifle numbers still intact, just in from Kraków.”
“Creemos estúpidamente que, por alguna razón, un acto criminal debe ser más premeditado y deliberado que un acto inocuo. En realidad no hay diferencia. Los actos poseen una elasticidad de la que los juicios éticos carecen.”
“Un imperio no se escinde dando un apretón de manos, sino cortándolas con una cuchilla.”
“Ernst Jünger would say that greatness consists in being exposed to the storm.”
“Cuando se muere en la calle se acaba formando un estruendo horroroso alrededor. No es verdad que se muera solo. Se acaba con caras que no se conocen delante de las narices, personas que tocan piernas y brazos para averiguar si el cuerpo es ya cadáver o vale la pena pedir que vaya una ambulancia.”
“Se cree que la última palabra pronunciada por un moribundo es su último pensamiento, el más importante, el fundamental. Que muere pronunciando aquello por lo que ha valido la pena vivir. No es así. Cuando uno muere no sale a la luz nada excepto el miedo. Todos, o casi todos, repiten la misma frase banal, sencilla, inmediata: «No quiero morir».”
“La justicia es un principio abstracto que afecta a todos, que permite, según cómo se interprete, absolver o condenar a todo ser humano: culpables los ministros, culpables los papas, culpables los santos y los herejes, culpables los revolucionarios y los reaccionarios. Culpables todos de haber traicionado, matado, errado. Culpables de haber envejecido y muerto. Culpables de haber sido superados y derrotados. Culpables todos ante el tribunal universal de la moral histórica y absueltos por el de la necesidad. Justicia e injusticia sólo tienen un significado en lo concreto. De victoria o derrota, de acción realizada o padecida. Si alguien te ofende, si te trata mal, está cometiendo una injusticia; si, en cambio, te reserva un trato de favor, te hace justicia.”
“Cuando ves tanta sangre por el suelo empiezas a tocarte, compruebas que tú no estás herido, que en aquella sangre no está también la tuya, empiezas a entrar en un estado de ansiedad psicótica, intentas asegurarte de que no haya heridas en tu cuerpo, de que no te hayas herido por casualidad, sin darte cuenta. Y aun así, no crees que en un hombre pueda haber tanta sangre, estás seguro de que tú tienes mucha menos. Cuando te convences de que esa sangre no la has perdido tú, no es suficiente: te sientes desangrado aunque la hemorragia no sea tuya. Tú mismo te conviertes en hemorragia, notas las piernas flojas, la boca pastosa, notas las manos disueltas en aquel lago denso, quisieras que alguien te mirase el interior de los ojos para comprobar el nivel de anemia. Quisieras llamar a un enfermero y pedir una transfusión, quisieras tener el estómago menos cerrado y comer un filete, si consigues no vomitar. Tienes que cerrar los ojos y no respirar. El olor de sangre coagulada que ya ha impregnado también las paredes de la habitación sabe a hierro oxidado. Tienes que salir al aire libre antes de que echen serrín sobre la sangre, porque la mezcla despide un olor terrible que hace imposible contener las ganas de vomitar.”
“I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. [...] Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them. Thus X will never compose the immortal music that would clash with the second-rate symphonies he has accustomed us to. Y will never commit murder. Under no circumstances can Z ever betray us. We have it all arranged in our minds, and the less often we see a particular person, the more satisfying it is to check how obediently he conforms to our notion of him every time we hear of him. Any deviation in the fates we have ordained would strike us as not only anomalous but unethical. We could prefer not to have known at all our neighbor, the retired hot-dog stand operator, if it turns out he has just produced the greatest book of poetry his age has seen.”
“De Melkweg,' fluisterde hij in zichzelf...
Marika stond naast hem en keek ook omhoog. Ze hief een arm op en volgde het helder oplichtende spoor. 'Sak be,' zei ze in de taal van de Maya's.”
“An alien was an alien was an alien.”
“إذا اتفق ونمت نوماً أبدياً فلن أتذمر ص 96”
“In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard a thing it is to tell what a wild, and rough, and stubborn wood this was, which in my thought renews the fear!”
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