“there is no collective guilt,...guilt is individual, like salvation." [p.28]”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Odessa File
“To understand everything is to forgive everything.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Odessa File
“People had Jewish friends, good friends; Jewish employers, good employers; Jewish employees, hard workers. They obeyed the laws, they didn’t hurt anyone. And here was Hitler saying they were to blame for everything. ‘So when the vans came and took them away, people didn’t do anything. They stayed out of the way, they kept quiet. They even got to believing the voice that shouted the loudest. Because that’s the way people are, particularly the Germans. We’re a very obedient people. It’s our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. It enables us to build an economic miracle while the British are on strike, and it enables us to follow a man like Hitler into a great big mass grave.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Odessa File
“When one can understand the people, their gullibility and their fear, their greed and their lust for power, their ignorance and their docility to the man who shouts the loudest, one can forgive.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Odessa File
“the SS had made the two initials of its name, and the twin-lightning symbol of its standard, synonymous with inhumanity in a way that no other organisation before or since has been able to do.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Odessa File
“one can forgive even what they did. But one can never forget.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Odessa File
“There are some men whose crimes surpass comprehension and therefore forgiveness, and here is the real failure. For they are still among us,”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Odessa File
“I understand so far,’ said Miller. ‘But why a passport? Why not a driving licence, or an ID card?’ ‘Because shortly after the founding of the republic the German authorities realised there must be hundreds or thousands wandering about under false names. There was a need for one document that was so well researched that it could act as the yardstick for all the others. They hit on the passport. Before you get a passport in Germany, you have to produce the birth certificate, several references and a host of other documentation. These are thoroughly checked before the passport is issued. ‘By contrast, once you have a passport, you can get anything else on the strength of it. Such is bureaucracy. The production of the passport convinces the civil servant that, since previous bureaucrats must have checked out the passport holder thoroughly, no further checking is necessary. With a new passport, Roschmann could quickly build up the rest of the identity – driving licence, bank accounts, credit cards. The passport is the open sesame to every other piece of necessary documentation in present-day Germany.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Odessa File
“It is always tempting to wonder what would have happened if … or if not. Usually it is a futile exercise, for what might have been is the greatest of all the mysteries.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Odessa File
“I have spent twenty years trying to understand the look in her eyes. Was it love or hatred, contempt or pity, bewilderment or understanding? I shall never know.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Odessa File
“there was no such thing as collective guilt. But we Germans have been told for twenty years that we are all guilty. Do you believe that?”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Odessa File
“The specific murderers of the SS therefore hide even today behind the collective guilt theory.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Odessa File
“But the words did not come. They never do, when one needs them.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Odessa File
“To understand everything is to forgive everything.’ When one can understand the people, their gullibility and their fear, their greed and their lust for power, their ignorance and their docility to the man who shouts the loudest, one can forgive. Yes, one can forgive even what they did. But one can never forget. There”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Odessa File
Frederick Forsyth
Born place: in Ashford, Kent, England, The United Kingdom
Born date August 25, 1938
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“And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, quote from The Silmarillion
“The Fourteenth Book is entitled, "What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?"
It doesn't take long to read The Fourteenth Book. It consists of one word and a period.
This is it: "Nothing.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, quote from Cat's Cradle
“In fact,' said Poirot, 'she stabbed him in the dark, not realising that he was dead already, but somehow deduced that he had a watch in his pyjama pocket, took it out, put back the hands blindly and gave it the requisite dent.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Murder on the Orient Express
“Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!
- Abigail”
― Arthur Miller, quote from The Crucible
“Love is like breathing. You take it in and let it out.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
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Out of BreathBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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