Svetlana Alexievich · 408 pages
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“Is there anything more frightening than people?”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“Reality has always attracted me like a magnet, tortured and hypnotized me, and I wanted to capture it on paper. So I immediately appropriated this genre of actual human voices and confessions, witness evidences and documents. This is how I hear and see the world—as a chorus of individual voices and a collage of everyday details. In this way all my mental and emotional potential is realized to the full. In this way I can be simultaneously a writer, reporter, sociologist, psychologist and preacher.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“We're often silent. We don't yell and we don't complain. We're patient, as always. Because we don't have the words yet. We're afraid to talk about it. We don't know how. It's not an ordinary experience, and the questions it raises are not ordinary. The world has been split in two: there's us, the Chernobylites, and then there's you, the others. Have you noticed? No one here points out that they're Russian or Belarussian or Ukrainian. We all call ourselves Chernobylites. "We're from Chernobyl." "I'm a Chernobylite." As if this is a separate people. A new nation.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“Come get your apples! Chernobyl apples!’ Someone told her not to advertise that, no one will buy them. ‘Don’t worry!’ she says. ‘They buy them anyway. Some need them for their mother-in-law, some for their boss.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“En la vida las cosas más terribles ocurren en silencio y de manera natural.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“Yo tengo miedo. Tengo miedo de una cosa, de que en nuestra vida el miedo ocupe el lugar del amor.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“Show me a fantasy novel about Chernobyl--there isn't one! Because reality is more fantastic.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“I'm not afraid of God. I'm afraid of man.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“Man lives with death, but he doesn’t understand what it is.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“Death is the fairest thing in the world. No one's ever gotten out of it. The earth takes everyone- the kind, the cruel, the sinners. Aside from that, there's no fairness on earth.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“I told you. There’s nothing heroic here, nothing for the writer’s pen. I had thoughts like, It’s not wartime, why should I have to risk myself while someone else is sleeping with my wife? Why me again, and not him? To be honest, I didn’t see any heroes there. I saw nutcases, who didn’t care about their own lives, and I had enough craziness myself, but it wasn’t necessary. I also have medals and awards—but that’s because I wasn’t afraid of dying. I didn’t care! It was even something of an out. They’d have buried me with honors. And the government would have paid for it.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“Chernobyl is like the war of all wars. There’s nowhere to hide. Not underground, not underwater, not in the air.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“I often thought that the simples fact, the mechanical fact, is no closer to the truth than a vague feeling, rumor, vision. Why repeat the facts - they cover up our feelings. The development of these feelings, the spilling of these feelings past the facts, is what fascinantes me. I try to find them, collect them, protect them.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“It's certainly true that Chernobyl, while an accident in the sense that no one intentionally set it off, was also the deliberate product of a culture of cronyism, laziness, and a deep-seated indifference toward the general population. The literature on the subject is pretty unanimous in its opinion that the Soviet system had taken a poorly designed reactor and then staffed it with a group of incompetents. It then proceeded, as the interviews in this book attest, to lie about the disaster in the most criminal way. In the crucial first ten days, when the reactor core was burning and releasing a steady stream of highly radioactive material into the surrounding areas, the authorities repeatedly claimed that the situation was under control. . . In the week after the accident, while refusing to admit to the world that anything really serious had gone wrong, the Soviets poured thousands of men into the breach. . . The machines they brought broke down because of the radiation. The humans wouldn't break down until weeks or months later, at which point they'd die horribly.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“قالوا لنا يجب أن ننتصر، على من؟
على الذرة، الفيزياء، الفضاء!!!!
النصر عندنا ليس حدث، بل عملية مستمرة”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“Así es como vivo. Vivo a la vez en un mundo real y en otro irreal. Y no sé dónde estoy mejor.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“At that time my notions of nuclear power were utterly idyllic. At school and at the university we'd been taught that this was a magical factory that made "energy out of nothing," where people in white robes sat and pushed buttons. Chernobyl blew up when we weren't prepared.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“¿Cómo elegir entre el amor y la muerte? ¿Entre el pasado y el ignorado presente? ¿Y quién se creerá con derecho a echar en cara a otras esposas y madres que no se quedaran junto a sus maridos e hijos? Junto a esos elementos radiactivos. En su mundo se vio alterado incluso el amor. Hasta la muerte.
Ha cambiado todo. Todo menos nosotros.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“Morirse no es difícil, solo da miedo.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“There’s a fragment of some conversation, I’m remembering it. Someone is saying: “You have to understand: this is not your husband anymore, not a beloved person, but a radioactive object with a strong density of poisoning. You’re not suicidal. Get ahold of yourself.” And I’m like someone who’s lost her mind: “But I love him! I love him!” He’s sleeping, and I’m whispering: “I love you!” Walking in the hospital courtyard, “I love you.” Carrying his sanitary tray, “I love you.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“That’s how it was in the beginning. We didn’t just lose a town, we lost our whole lives.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“لا يمكن لفنان ان يكون علي مستوي الواقع ، لن يستطيع تحمُله”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“The only righteous thing on the face of the earth is death. No one has ever bribed their way out of that. The earth takes us all: the good, the evil and the sinners. And that's all the justice you'll find in this world.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“Back then everyone was saying: "We're going to die, we're going to die. By the year 2000, there won't be any Belarussians left.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“Hubo un tiempo en que envidiaba a los héroes. A los que habían participado en los grandes acontecimientos. A los que habían vivido épocas de ruptura, momentos cruciales de la historia. Soñaba [...] Pero ahora pienso de otro modo; no quiero convertirme en historia, no quiero vivir una época histórica como la de ahora.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“Espere... Quiero que sepa una cosa... Yo no temo a Dios. A mí lo que me da miedo son los hombres.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“Lo que ha pasado es algo desconocido. Es otro miedo. No se oye, no se ve, no huele, no tiene color; en cambio nosotros cambiamos física y psíquicamente.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
“People ask me: “Why don’t you take photos in color? In color!” But Chernobyl: literally it means black event. There are no other colors there.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, quote from Voces de Chernóbil: Crónica del futuro
Svetlana Alexievich
Born place: in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine
Born date May 31, 1948
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“Every degree of power involves a corresponding degree of freedo from good and evil.”
― James St. James, quote from Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland
“I can't believe your boss tried to kill you, too," Jessica said. "I mean, I know they're trying to keep the unemployment rate down, but that's ridiculous."
"Most people think their bosses are out to get them. But mine really was!”
― MaryJanice Davidson, quote from Undead and Unemployed
“There are times in a person's life when he or she must make a choice to believe. I choose to believe the sun will rise tomorrow. I also choose to believe that if you go to bed hungry you will wake up ready to eat. I've met a group of men in a faraway country who choose to believe that if you stand on a tree stump for an hour you will gain sympathy for trees. I am already quite sympathetic to trees, so I choose to think they are bonkers.”
― Obert Skye, quote from Leven Thumps and the Wrath of Ezra
“What the f**k is this?”
Trevor didn’t rise to the bait, as he hadn’t for the last several days. Calmly, he asked,
“What?”
“This.” Edgard threw the pristine, custom-made saddle on the ground within Trevor’s peripheral view.
Shit. How had Edgard found it? And why in the hell had that bastard gone snooping around instead of figuring out what was wrong with Meridian like he’d promised?
“Trev? I asked you a question.”
“You know damn good and well what it is, Ed.”
“I figured you would’ve gotten rid of it by now.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
Edgard practically growled, “That don’t tell me why you still have it. That don’t tell me nothin’.”
Trevor turned his face toward the opposite fence to gaze across to the mountains. His reasons for keeping the saddle seemed sentimental, sloppy and stupid now, but he’d be damned if he’d share those reasons with anyone, least of all Edgard, the man responsible for those feelings.
Bootsteps made a sucking sound in the muck of the corral as Edgard closed the short distance between them. “I ain’t gonna drop it. Answer me.”
“Fine. You said I could do whatever I wanted with it. So I kept it.”
“You didn’t use it at all, did you?”
Trevor shook his head, keeping his eyes averted.
“Why not?”
“I have plenty of other saddles, saddles I like better.”
“That’s a piss-poor excuse. Try again.”
He stayed mum, wishing the damn mud would open up and swallow him like a sinkhole.
“Were you hoping if you kept it I’d come back?”
Trevor’s heart said yes but his mouth stayed tight as a rusty hinge.
“Answer the f**king question, Trevor.”
Edgard’s arrogant streak snapped Trevor’s forced patience. “What do you want me to say? It’s obvious I saved the goddamn saddle.”
“Why?”
“Because it reminded me of you, all right?” He kicked a chunk of mud and stalked away. “Fuck this and f**k you.”
Edgard rattled off something in Portuguese, something Trevor vaguely remembered as being a plea. Or was it a threat?
Dammit. His feet stopped. Trevor’s gaze zeroed in on Edgard, who’d circled him until they were standing less than a foot apart.
“Tell me why.”
Be cruel, that’ll nip this in the bud once and for all.
“I didn’t keep the f**kin’ thing because I had some girlish goddamn hope you’d come back lookin’ for it like Cinderella’s lost glass slipper, and we’d pick up where we left off after you left me.” He locked his eyes to the liquid heat in Edgard’s, not allowing the man to look away. “Especially after you made it crystal clear you weren’t ever comin’ back.”
Angry puffs of breath distorted the air between them.
Several beats passed before Edgard retorted, “But I am here now, aren’t I?”
“What? Am I supposed to be flippin’ cartwheels about that fact? I don’t know what you want from me, Ed. Take the saddle back if that’ll make you happy. I’ve got no use for it. I never did.” Angry, disgusted with himself, Edgard, and the whole uncomfortable situation, Trevor spun and walked toward the barn.
Edgard laughed—the taunting, soft laughter that was guaranteed to raise Trevor’s hackles and his ire. “It’s that easy for you? To get pissed off and walk away?”
“Yep. You’ve got no right to act so goddamned surprised since it’s a trick I learned from you, amigo.”
Not two seconds later, the air left Trevor’s lungs as Edgard tackled him to the ground. Trevor rolled to dislodge the man from his back; Edgard countered, took a swing and missed. Trevor bucked and twisted his shoulders, but Edgard anticipated the move and used the momentum against Trevor to try and shove Trevor’s face against the fence.
Before Edgard cornered him and held him down completely to land a punch, Trevor rolled again and pushed to his feet. A noise echoed behind him, but he ignored it as he fisted his hands in Edgard’s shearling coat, dragging him upright until they were nose to nose.”
― Lorelei James, quote from Rough, Raw, and Ready
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― Julie Lessman, quote from A Heart Revealed
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