Quotes from The Boys from Brazil

“Someday, he thought, I would like to meet a monster who looked like a monster.”
― Ira Levin, quote from The Boys from Brazil

“philosophers have warned us: if we forget the past, we are doomed to repeat it.”
― Ira Levin, quote from The Boys from Brazil

“They were confident and cunning. They weren't mucking around looking for nuclear weapon secret sloppy seconds in America. They could care less about America. They were busy with the whole world domination thing.”
― Ira Levin, quote from The Boys from Brazil

“don’t let me hear you say again ‘Fuck orders’! You’re a corporal who’s been assigned a duty, and if your superiors have chosen not to tell you the reason for it, then they have a reason for that too. Good Christ, you’re an SS man; behave like one! ‘My Honor Is Loyalty.’ Those words were supposed to be engraved on your soul!”
― Ira Levin, quote from The Boys from Brazil

“I say in my talks it takes two things to make it happen again, a new Hitler and social conditions like in the thirties. But that's not true. It takes three things: the Hitler, the conditions, and the people to follow the Hitler.

And don't you think he'd find them?

No, not enough of them. I really think people are better and smarter now, not so much thinking their leaders are God. The television makes a big difference.”
― Ira Levin, quote from The Boys from Brazil

“Liebermann said, “Ninety-four Hitlers,” and shook his head. “No,” he said. “No. It’s not possible.” “Of course it isn’t,” Nürnberger said. “There are ninety-four boys with the same genetic inheritance as Hitler. They could turn out very differently. Most of them probably will.” “Most,” Liebermann said. He nodded at Klaus and at Lena. “Most.” He looked at Nürnberger. “That leaves some,” he said.”
― Ira Levin, quote from The Boys from Brazil

“philosophers have warned us: if we forget the past, we are doomed to repeat”
― Ira Levin, quote from The Boys from Brazil

“No. I’ve been thinking about this for weeks. I say in my talks it takes two things to make it happen again, a new Hitler and social conditions like in the thirties. But that’s not true. It takes three things: the Hitler, the conditions…and the people to follow the Hitler.” “And don’t you think he’d find them?” “No, not enough of them. I really think people are better and smarter now, not so much thinking their leaders are God. The television makes a big difference. And history, knowing…Some he’d find, yes; but no more, I think—I hope—than the pretend-Hitlers we have now, in Germany and South America.”
― Ira Levin, quote from The Boys from Brazil

“Hessen? Dr. Mengele. Everything’s fine, there’s nothing to worry about. Exactly the amateur I expected. I don’t think he even understood German. Send the boys home to practice their signatures; it was just an excitement to round off the evening. No, not till 1977, I’m afraid; I fly back to the compound as soon as we clean up. So go with God, Horst. And say it for me to the others: ‘Go with God.’” He hung up and said, “Heil Hitler.”
― Ira Levin, quote from The Boys from Brazil

“now I want something better than vengeance, and something almost as hard to get.” He told it to the young woman in the second row: “I want remembrance.” He told it to all of them: “Remembrance. It’s hard to get because life goes on; every year we have new horrors—a Vietnam, terrorist activities in the Middle East and Ireland, assassinations”—(ninety-four sixty-five-year-old men?)—“and every year,” he drove himself on, “the horror of horrors, the Holocaust, becomes farther away, a little less horrible. But philosophers have warned us: if we forget the past, we are doomed to repeat it.”
― Ira Levin, quote from The Boys from Brazil

“Ninety-four men have to die on or near certain dates in the next two and a half years,” he said, reading. “Sixteen of them are in West Germany, fourteen in Sweden, thirteen in England, twelve in the United States, ten in Norway, nine in Austria, eight in Holland, and six each in Denmark and Canada. Total, ninety-four. The first is to die on or near October sixteenth; the last, on or near the twenty-third of April, 1977.” He sat back and looked at the men again. “Why must these men die? And why on or near their particular dates?” He shook his head. “Not now; later you can be told that. But this I can tell you now: their deaths are the final step in an operation”
― Ira Levin, quote from The Boys from Brazil

“Some day, he thought, I would like to meet a monster who LOOKS like a monster.”
― Ira Levin, quote from The Boys from Brazil

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Popular quotes

“He shouldn't have had to die."

"Nobody should have to die," Miriamele said slowly. "Especially while they're still alive.”
― Tad Williams, quote from To Green Angel Tower

“- Връащам ви книгата за Швейцария.
- Не биваше да я спасявате. Мечтите не бива да се спасяват.
- Напротив. - каза Гребер - Какво друго, ако не те?
- Вярата. Мечтите се раждат отново.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from A Time to Love and a Time to Die

“I knew it then. For me and her, there wasn’t any time left to think back to that summer and the beach and a boy who charmed us and disappointed us. There was only what stretched out ahead, years full of new summers and promise, with all the time in the world left to start again. My sister, who never understood most of the things I wanted her to, might have been able to understand what had happened to me in this summer of weddings and beginnings. And she was right. The first boy was always the hardest.”
― Sarah Dessen, quote from That Summer

“So my eyes spotted it and my brain processed it and rejected it instantly, on a purely preprogrammed basis. And then it hung up on it. Out of pure animal instinct. Because it looked like a snake. The lizard part of my brain whispered snake and I got that little primeval jolt of fright that had kept my ancestors alive and well way back in evolution. It was all over in a split second. It was smothered immediately. The modern educated part of my mind stepped in and said, No snakes here in January, bud. Way too cold. I breathed out and moved on a step and then paused to look back, purely out of curiosity.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Enemy

“إنظرا إلى هؤلاء الخصيان في الجنائن هناك، لقد أوكلنا إليهم حراسة أجمل فتيات البلاد. وعندهم أعين كأعيننا،وآذان كآذاننا، وحواس كحواسنا، بيد أن بتر صغير في جسدهم كان كافياً لتغيير تصورهم للعالم. فماذا يعني لأحدهم عطر مسكر لون نضر عند فتاة شابة؟ أو ملامسة نهدين عذراوين فتيين؟ لا شيء سوى إحساس مزعج بأن لديه كتلة من اللحم المكتنز دونما فائدة. أنظرا تلك هي نسبية حواسنا. فماذا يهم الأعمى إن أحاطته ألوان حديقة غنّاء؟ والأصم إن صدح حوله تغريد العندليب. وكذلك سحر عذراء لا يثير مشاعر خصي ص 307”
― Vladimir Bartol, quote from Alamut

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