Geraldine Brooks Quotes

I do not wish to sit at the same table with a bunch of torturers.

Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle, every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished.

The forces of violence and oppression don't care about the innocent.

The more cruel the wrong that men commit against an individual or a people, the deeper their hatred and contempt for their victim.

These days, my subjects are murder and mayhem and other terrible things that happen to people - things that are even worse than cutting yourself shaving. And these are not the sorts of things you feel the need to experience before you write about them.

There are people who are suffering beyond description. They are innocent people, they didn't bring this upon themselves. They are the victims of the sins of other people. And while it's hard to see, it's important to understand that these people exist.

Sadly, of course, there is real evil in the world. You watch the news, and you see all of the people suffering and so much cruelty.

Words that are saturated with lies or atrocity, do not easily resume life.

There is no limit to suffering human beings have been willing to inflict on others, no matter how innocent, no matter how young, and no matter how old. This fact must lead all reasonable human beings, that is, all human beings who take evidence seriously, to draw only one possible conclusion: Human nature is not basically good.

People, man, they love hurting people. It's not even fair.

When I first saw a picture of the crucifixion, I lost respect for my parents. I suddenly realised that this is what the adult world is like - full of cruelty and hypocrisy.

Every evil and hardship that exists and has existed on the land of Palestine was caused by the Jews, they initiate evil because they have sick-hearts and evil intentions and souls…. The arrogance of the Jews has transgressed all limits; they have become obsessed with murdering and shedding the pure blood of innocent people; they have no conscience, no values and no sense of humanity in them. They are committing massacres in cities and refugee camps very frequently; they are deliberately mutilating bodies thinking that this will end the determination and will of the Muslim nation and to struggle on.

… musty deposits of 2000 years of inhumanity, intolerance and foulness.

Only the tortured can understand those who have been tortured.

If slavery, barbarism and desolation are to be called peace, men can have no worse misfortune.

Strangely, I have a huge aversion to movies that try to teach healthy people an abusive lesson about the darkness in the world.

Cruelty was the devil, and most people were, in one way or another, cruel. Tyranny, suppression, persecution, torture, slavery, war, neglect - all were cruel. The world was acid and sour with hate, fat with greed, yellow with the triumph of the strong and the rich.

It was the people who did not care who filled the world with fire and oppression. It was the hands of the indifferent that lit the faggots; it was the hands of the indifferent that turned the rack.

Always the innocent are the first victims, so it has been for ages past, so it is now.

It's hard to think what should make your blood boil more - what happened to Billy Ray or what didn't happen to those who abused him. It's something we can't ignore.

Often an entire city has suffered because of an evil man.

Man is not the enemy here, but the fellow victim.

Violence always seems to me the worst form of tyranny. It deprives people of their rights, including the right to live.

Violence ravaged my life. I was a victim of hatred, and I have dedicated my life to reversing that hatred.