Papillon

We have too much technological progress, life is too hectic, and our society has only one goal: to invent still more technological marvels to make life even easier and better. The craving for every new scientific discovery breeds a hunger for greater comfort and the constant struggle to achieve it. All that kills the soul, kills compassion, understanding, nobility. It leaves no time for caring what happens to other people, least of all criminals. Even the officials in Venezuela's remote areas are better for they're also concerned with public peace. It gives them many headaches, but they seem to believe that bringing about a man's salvation is worth the effort. I find that magnificent.

I’ve known this a long time, because when Napoleon III created the bagnes and was asked: “But who will guard these bandits?” he answered: “Worse bandits.

We have too much technological progress, life is too hectic, and our society has only one goal: to invent still more technological marvels to make life even easier and better. The craving for every new scientific discovery breeds a hunger for greater comfort and the constant struggle to achieve it. All that kills the soul, kills compassion, understanding, nobility. It leaves no time for caring what happens to other people, least of all criminals.

I must prove that I can be, that I am and will be, a normal person. Perhaps no better, but certainly no worse than the rest.

It was worth having made this break for the people, the human beings it had brought me into contact with. Although it had failed, my escape had been a victory, merely by having enriched my heart with the friendship of these wonderful people. No, I was not sorry. I had done it.

The important thing was that we were alive...

This was 1941 and I'd been in prison eleven years. I was thirty-five. I'd spent the best years of my life either in a cell or in a black-hole. I'd only had seven months of total freedom with my Indian tribe. The children my Indian wives must have had by me would be eight years old now. How terrible! How quickly the time had flashed by! But a backward glance showed all these hours and minutes studding my calvary as terribly long, and each one of them hard to bear.

Those who haven't been exposed to the hypocrisies of a civilized education react to things 'naturally', as they happen. It is in the here and now that they are either happy or unhappy, joyful or sad, interested or indifferent.

Sleep in peace, you members of the jury who condemned me to this place; sleep in peace,

You want me to be killed? Why are you taking away my knife? I guess you realize you’re sending me to my grave?

He even whispered in my ear: “You suffer; you will suffer more. But this time I am on your side. You will be free. You will, I promise you.

What should we do? I was beginning to understand a few words of Spanish: to escape, fugar; prisoner, preso; to kill, matar; chain, cadena; handcuffs, esposas; man, hombre; woman, mujer.

I am not a good enough writer to convey the intense emotion I felt over my newfound self-respect. It was a rehabilitation, if not a new life. This imaginary baptism, the immersion in purity, the elevation of my being above the filth in which I'd been mired and, overnight, this sense of responsibility, made me into a different man. The convict's complexes that make him hear his chains and suspect he's being watched even after he's freed, everything I'd seen, gone through, suffered, everything that was making me tarnished, rotten and dangerous, passively obedient on the surface but terribly dangerous in rebellion, all that had disappeared as if by a miracle.

evet, şu sıra yalnızlığa katlanabilmek, eskisinden de güç. . Öyle bir haldeyim ki, düşüncelerimle geçmişte ve günümüzde gezinmek için gözlerimi kapamam bile gerekmiyor.

Mahkümluk serüvenimn son gecesinn siniriyle hamağımda dönüp duruyorm. Yerimden kalkıyor,son aylarda çok iyi baktığm bahçemde geziniyorum.Ay ışığı ortalığı gün gibi aydınlatıyor. Nehrin suyu, gürültü etmeden denize doğru akıyor. Kuş sesi duyulmuyor, hepsi uykuda. Gökyüzü yıldızlarla kaplı, ama ay öylesine parlak ki yıldızları görebilmek için ona sırt çevirmek gerek. Tam karşımda sık orman, tek açıklık..El Dorado köyünün yapıldığı yer. Doğanın bu derin sessizliği beni dinlendiriyor. İçimdeki telaş yavaş yavaş diniyor, bu anın durgunluğu…ihtiyaç duyduğum huzuru sağlıyor bana

the butterflies that had just hatched hurried into the light to find love as

...pergunto a mim próprio até que ponto o silêncio absoluto e o completo isolamento infligidos a um jovem encerrado numa cela podem, antes de o levarem à loucura, dar azo a uma verdadeira vida imaginativa. Vida de tal modo intensa , de tal modo viva, que o indivíduo se desdobra literalmente. Levanta voo e vai vagabundear por onde lhe apetece. (...), os castelos no ar que o seu fecundo espírito inventa, que ele cria com uma imaginação tão incrivelmente fértil que, (...), chega a pensar que está a viver tudo quanto vai sonhando.