Bergen Quotes

The most important thing in life is your family. There are days you love them, and others you don't. But, in the end, they're the people you always come home to. Sometimes it's the family you're born into and sometimes it's the one you make for yourself.

Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.

Någon ropade på mig i drömmen och jag seker honom långt i fjärran bortom bergen.

Hollywood is like Picasso's bathroom.

Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.

men say they love independence in a woman, but they don't waste a second demolishing it brick by brick

Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.

Ik wou dat ik iemand was, dat denk ik ondertussen, en dat ik alles kon, of toch datgene wat ze van mij wilden. Ik wou het zelfvertrouwen van dat ene kind met die grote oren. En het grapje waar die mevrouw met dat haar, daar achter dat ene raam, zo om moet lachen. Ik wou stoute schoenen om aan te trekken. Ik wou glanzend geluk en onwerkelijk grote liefde. Ik wou troost voor mij en voor iedereen die dat nodig heeft. Ik wou dat ik steengoed was in wat ik deed. Ik wou dat ik hem kon geven wat hij dan verlangt. Ik wou een vader die ik meer kon helpen. Ik wou de mist boven de bergen, dingen om nooit meer te vergeten, en onweerstaanbaar zijn, dat ook nog.

„'Spieglein, Spieglein an der Wand: wer ist die schönste Frau in dem ganzen Land?' da antwortete der Spiegel aber wieder: 'Frau Königin, ihr seyd die schönste hier, aber Sneewittchen, über den sieben Bergen ist noch tausend Mal schöner als Ihr!

It takes a long time to become a person.

Lang nadat ik was opgehouden mijn vaders paden na te lopen, had ik van hem geleerd dat er in sommige levens bergen bestaan waar je niet naar terug kunt keren. Dat je in levens als het mijne en het zijne niet terug kunt naar de berg die het middelpunt is van alle andere, en het begin van je eigen geschiedenis. En dat mensen zoals wij, die op de eerste en hoogste berg een vriend hebben verloren, niets anders rest dan dwalen over de acht bergen.

The photographs of the inmates at Bergen-Belsen or Andersonville Prison or the bodies in the ditch at My Lai disturb us in a singular fashion because those instances of egregious human cruelty were committed for the most part by baptized Christians.

We may be done with the past but the past is not done with us. Show more Show less

The most difficult part of being a mother was to observe the mistakes of one's children: the foolish loves, the desperate solitude and alienation, the lack of will, the gullibility, the joyous and naive leaps into the unknown, the ignorance, the panicky choices and the utter determination.

I met you under the balloon, on the occasion of your return from Norway; you asked if it was mine; I said it was. The balloon, I said, is a spontaneous autobiographical disclosure, having to do with the unease I felt at your absence, and with sexual deprivation, but now that your visit to Bergen has been terminated, it is no longer necessary or appropriate. Removal of the balloon was easy; trailer trucks carried away the depleted fabric, which is now stored in West Virginia, awaiting some other time of unhappiness, some time, perhaps, when we are angry with one another.

Most civilized lives are measured out with coffee spoons.

For an organization devoted to revolutionary holy war, the pre-9/11 al-Qaeda sometimes had the feel of an insurance company, albeit a heavily armed one.

No matter who broke your heart, or how long it takes to heal, you’ll never get through it without your friends.

Euphemisms persist because lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.

I revealed too much too soon. I was emotionally slutty.

Frågar du mig var jag finns så bor jag här bakom bergen Det är långt men jag är nära Jag bor i en annan värld men du bor ju i samma.

social media addict? This is a very real problem—so much so that researchers from Norway developed a new instrument to measure Facebook addiction called the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale.[3] Social media has become as ubiquitous as television in our everyday lives, and this research shows that multitasking social media can be as addictive as drugs, alcohol, and chemical substance abuse. A large number of friends on social media networks may appear impressive, but according to a new report, the more social circles a person is linked to, the more likely the social media will be a source of stress.[4] It can also have a detrimental effect on consumer well-being because milkshake-multitasking interferes with clear thinking and decision-making, which lowers self-control and leads to rash, impulsive buying and poor eating decisions. Greater social media use is associated with a higher body mass index, increased binge eating, a lower credit score, and higher levels of credit card debt for consumers with many close friends in their social network—all caused by a lack of self-control.[5] We Can Become Shallow

For adults, summer was different-- flatter, the way everything became flatter when you grew old, like the hills you once sledded and stood on your pedals to climb, like the Christmases and birthdays you once anticipated, even after you discovered they disappointed, again and again, until you became numb to their disappointment.

I had gained an insight. At great expense, but it was real and important: I was not a writer. What writers had, I did not have. I fought against this insight, I told myself I might be able to have what writers had, it might be attainable provided I persisted for long enough, while knowing in fact this was only a consolation. - Karl Ove Knausgaard, after his year at the Bergen Writing Academy

En gång ska du vara en av dem som levat för längesen. Jorden skall minnas dig så som den minns gräset och skogarna, det multnade lövet. Så som myllan minns och så som bergen minns vindarna. Din frid skall vara oändlig så som havet.

Ich stand zwischen Damm und Straße, ringsum waren Felder, Obstbäume und weiter weg ein Gärtnereibetrieb mit Gewächshäusern. Die Luft war frisch. Sie war erfüllt vom Zwitschern der Vögel. Über den Bergen leuchtete der weiße himmel rosa.

We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us

Negotiations with religious fanatics who have delusions of grandeur generally do not go well.

when you conclude a paper, you should always close a door and open a window

Man muss weitergehen, auch wenn es keinen Ort der Ankunft gibt. Unablässig und erbarmungslos dreht sich das Universum und mit ihm die Erde und der Mond, aber diese Bewegung geht von nichts anderem aus als von einem Geheimnis, das wir Menschen in uns bergen.

Schon die Vorbereitungen unserer Eltern auf die Berge hatten uns gegen sie und dadurch gegen die Berge aufgebracht, gegen die frische Luft und gegen die von unseren Eltern ununterbrochen herbeigesehnte Ruhe, die sie in den Bergen zu finden glaubten, aber doch nie als in ihnen, wie wir wissen, gefunden haben; schon wie sie von dem neuerlichen bevorstehenden Hochgebirgsaufenthalt gesprochen haben, wie sie ihre Hochgebirgshabseligkeiten eingepackt und uns mit diesem Einpacken ihrer Hochgebirgshabseligkeiten konfrontiert haben, hatte uns gegen ihre Hochgebirgsabsicht und gegen ihre Hochgebirgsleidenschaft und schließlich gegen ihren Hochgebirgswahnsinn aufgebracht und wir waren von dieser ihrer Hochgebirgsabsicht und -leidenschaft, wie von ihrem Hochgebirgswahnsinn abgestoßen gewesen.

How much kinder it would have been, to turn off, like an appliance. The gradual, drawn-out corruption of the body while its host was still trapped inside was a torture of a sort they would have contrived at Guantanamo, or Bergen-Belsen. Every old age was an Edgar Allan Poe story.

Frågar du mig var jag finns så bor jag här bakom bergen Det är långt men jag är nära Jag bor i en annan värld men du bor ju i samma Den finns överallt om också sällsynt som helium Varför begär du ett luftskepp att fara med Begär i stället ett filter för kväve ett filter för kolsyra, väte och andra gaser Begär ett filter för allt som skiljer oss ett filter för livet Du säger att du nästan inte kan andas Än sen! Vem tror du kan andas? Den mesta tiden tar vi det ändå med jämnmod En vis man har sagt : >>Det var så mörkt att jag nätt och jämt kunde se stjärnorna<< Han menade bara att det var natt

Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging, and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.

they abandoned their careers in a bid not to squander an instant with the child they almost never had.

There is nothing more gracious than genuinely embracing other people's good fortune.

The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think it’s accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.

Halverwege de bergen is het uitzicht ook al mooi

Ho jeg har visst alt faat Vaaren i mig, jeg bruker min Qvind som en gale, Fan steike mig, og æter langt bedre end på længe!(1912, brev til J.M. Køhler Olsen i Bergen)

Now, twenty years later, Candice Bergen, who played Murphy Brown, admitted Quayle was right – but at the time, Quayle was running for re-election, and so he had to be wrong.

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired. Edgar Bergen

Bergen, and Oldfield. The

Er bestaat een creatieve macht die zich inzet om de bergen des kwaad omver te halen en de heuveltoppen van het onrecht te vereffenen.

Ich glaube an einen Fluss der vom Meer zu den Bergen fließt ich fordere nicht mehr von der Poesie als diesen Fluss zu beschreiben.

There is a picture of me from that day. I saw it once on a PBS documentary about April 15, 1945, when the first British tanks approached Bergen-Belsen.

[I]t was in the pairs that the prisoners kept alive the semblance of humanity concluded Elmer Luchterhand, a sociologist at Yale who interviewed fifty-two concentration camp survivors shortly after liberation. Pairs stole food and clothing for each other, exchanged small gifts and planned for the future. If one member of a pair fainted from hunger in front of an SS officer, the other would prop him up. Survival . . . could only be a social achievement, not an individual accident, wrote Eugene Weinstock, a Belgian resistance fighter and Hungarian-born Jew who was sent to Buchenwald in 1943. Finally the death of one member of a pair often doomed the other. Women who knew Anne Frank in the Bergen-Belsen camp said that neither hunger nor typhus killed the young girl who would become the most famous diarist of the Nazi era. Rather, they said, she lost the will to live after the death of her sister, Margot.

Friends with whom you seriously fall out are death. Sometimes it will be completely your fault that this happens, and the shame and sadness of the parting will stay close for a long time.

Gehurkt aan de waterrand volgde ik het wonder. De sterren verbleekten, de hemel werd lichter, en tegen het licht tekenden met fijne pen de bergen, de bomen, de meeuwen zich af. De dag brak aan.

Se ora penso agli anni di allora, mi colpisce quanto poco ci fosse in realtà da vedere, quante poche immagini illustrassero la vita e la morte nei Lager. Conoscevamo di Auschwitz il portale con la sua scritta, i pancacci di legno a più piani, i mucchi di capelli, occhiali e valigie; di Birkenau l'entrata con la torre, i corpi laterali e il passaggio per i treni; e da Bergen-Belsen ci venivano le montagne di cadaveri trovate e fotografate dagli alleati al momento della liberazione. Conoscevamo alcune testimonianze di detenuti, ma molti libri apparvero subito dopo la guerra e vennero ristampati solo negli anni Ottanta, visto che nel frattempo non rientrarono nei programmi delle case editrici. Ora ci sono così tanti libri e film che il mondo dei Lager è ormai parte dell'immaginario collettivo che completa il mondo reale. La fantasia lo conosce ormai bene, e a partire dalla serie televisiva Olocausto e da film come La scelta di Sophie e soprattutto Schindler's list si muove anche in quel mondo. E non ne prende solo atto, ma integra e abbellisce. Allora la fantasia stentava a muoversi; riteneva che allo sgomento di cui era debitrice al mondo dei Lager non si confacessero le movenze della fantasia. Quelle poche immagini che doveva alle foto degli alleati e alle testimonianze dei detenuti, le ha poi guardate riguardate, fino a farne dei cliché.

Er zit een geheim in alles wat je ziet en zelfs als je dat geheim oplost blijft er het geheim van je vermogen om het te zien en op te lossen. Denk ook vooral niet dat ik met open mond van verbazing door de wetenschap gezworven heb, slechts gedreven door nieuwsgierigheid. Noodzaak, mislukking, geld of gemakzucht hebben me vaak een andere kant op geleid maar altijd weer naar de ontdekking van de natuurlijke schoonheid in elk mens en elk levend wezen. Je kunt zowel schoonheid horen in het gepiep van ratten als in het gepiep van autobanden, net zo goed als je schoonheid kunt zien in de vorm van onbegrijpelijke wolken en bergen en meren en in de geest van kinderen.

The American and British soldiers who liberated the dying inmates from camps in Germany believed that they had discovered the horrors of Nazism. The images their photographers and cameramen captured of the corpses and the living skeletons at Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald seemed to convey the worst crimes of Hitler...this was far from the truth. The worst was in the ruins of Warsaw, or the fields of Treblinka, or the marshes of Belarus, or the pits of Babi Yar.

Words mean nothing. They are like the husks of the coffee Bean. They cover what is essential, which is the bean itself, and when the husks are discarded, they lie on the road and rot and disappear. Actions are what lie inside, like the bean.

So the insurgency was born in a perfect storm of American errors--not establishing order; not providing the semblance of any government; confirming to the Sunnis who had once lorded it over Iraq's Shia majority that they were officially the underdogs; and throwing hundreds of thousands of soldiers onto the streets in an economy where the jobless rate was around 50 percent, while simultaneously ensuring that there was an unlimited supply of weaponry at hand for those angry young men.

Some kind of personal crisis (the loss of a job, the experience of racism, moral outrage caused by the way Muslims were being treated in international conflicts, or the death of a close family member) provided a “cognitive opening” for a turn to Salafi beliefs,

She left feeling dirty, and on the bus ride home she knew that what her uncles told her had come true: she had been attracted to an object that was beautiful, and she had become spellbound, and then its shape had changed, and what had appeared beautiful had turned ugly.

There were no witnesses except the woman who'd been up all night, had consumed two beers and three vodka tonics before switching to (and sharing) the play-wright's Scotch, and she (the witness) could remember the morning only in snatches, like the digital stills and clips that cycled through her computer's screensaver.

And so now, today, one cannot think of the greats—Kant, Hegel, Spinoza, Marx, Fichte, Freud, Nietzsche, Einstein, Schopenhauer, Leibniz, Schelling—the whole Germanic sphere—without thinking, at some point, of Auschwitz and Treblinka, Sobibor and Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Chelmno. My God, they have names, as if they were human.

The Last Hero The wind blew out from Bergen from the dawning to the day, There was a wreck of trees and fall of towers a score of miles away, And drifted like a livid leaf I go before its tide, Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride. The heavens are bowed about my head, shouting like seraph wars, With rains that might put out the sun and clean the sky of stars, Rains like the fall of ruined seas from secret worlds above, The roaring of the rains of God none but the lonely love. Feast in my hall, O foemen, and eat and drink and drain, You never loved the sun in heaven as I have loved the rain. The chance of battle changes -- so may all battle be; I stole my lady bride from them, they stole her back from me. I rent her from her red-roofed hall, I rode and saw arise, More lovely than the living flowers the hatred in her eyes. She never loved me, never bent, never was less divine; The sunset never loved me, the wind was never mine. Was it all nothing that she stood imperial in duresse? Silence itself made softer with the sweeping of her dress. O you who drain the cup of life, O you who wear the crown, You never loved a woman's smile as I have loved her frown. The wind blew out from Bergen to the dawning of the day, They ride and run with fifty spears to break and bar my way, I shall not die alone, alone, but kin to all the powers, As merry as the ancient sun and fighting like the flowers. How white their steel, how bright their eyes! I love each laughing knave, Cry high and bid him welcome to the banquet of the brave. Yea, I will bless them as they bend and love them where they lie, When on their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky. The hour when death is like a light and blood is like a rose, -- You never loved your friends, my friends, as I shall love my foes. Know you what earth shall lose to-night, what rich uncounted loans, What heavy gold of tales untold you bury with my bones? My loves in deep dim meadows, my ships that rode at ease, Ruffling the purple plumage of strange and secret seas. To see this fair earth as it is to me alone was given, The blow that breaks my brow to-night shall break the dome of heaven. The skies I saw, the trees I saw after no eyes shall see, To-night I die the death of God; the stars shall die with me; One sound shall sunder all the spears and break the trumpet's breath: You never laughed in all your life as I shall laugh in death.

As a mother, I am a backup singer in every way. There's never been a shred of competitiveness. I've always been thrilled whenever Chloe was front and center.

Collective burden, defined as the aggregate internalized guilt and complicity of a group of people, is the wellspring from which spirits arise.

There is nothing more gracious than genuinely embracing other people's good fortune. It will work for you when your time comes.

raiding parties and pirate crews. This is in stark

Morris had been raised a Mennonite stoic in a tribe that wasn't a tribe at all, but more a failed cult whose main sources of entertainment were music, wordplay, and suffering.

Stories from concentration camps bring nightmares to adults as if they were helpless little children.

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster, for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. —Friedrich Nietzsche

The most deadly jihadist attacks in the United States since 9/11, and the most threatening plots, have been carried out by or instigated by Americans.

Ook de bergen en afgronden zijn niet voor het genoegen van de mens geschapen. Zij zijn dreigend en angstaanjagend, als de klauwen en tanden van een ons belagend, verscheurend dier. Zij herinneren ons al te zeer aan de vergankelijkheid van ons bestaan en boezemen ons angst en schrik in. En de hemel lijkt boven rotsen en afgronden zo ver en onbereikbaar, alsof hij van de mensen niets weten wil.

alphabet, and G meant that bin Laden was “secured.” McRaven relayed the word Geronimo to the White House. But this was ambiguous: Was bin Laden captured or dead? So McRaven asked the SEAL ground force commander, “Is he EKIA [Enemy Killed in Action]?” A few seconds later, the answer came back: “Roger, Geronimo EKIA.” Then McRaven announced to the White House, “Geronimo EKIA.” There were gasps in the Situation Room, but no whoops or high fives. The president quietly said, “We got him, we got him.” It was still the middle of the night in Pakistan, and the SEALs were able to see only through the murky, pixilated

Obama would prove to be one of the most militarily aggressive American presidents in decades. He authorized military operations in seven Muslim countries—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen; mandated a troop surge in Afghanistan; and vastly ramped up the CIA drone program. And he became the first president since the Civil War to authorize the assassination of a U.S. citizen: Anwar al-Awlaki.

Bit by bit, it comes over us that we shall never hear this laughter again, and that this one garden is forever locked against us, and at that moment begins our true mourning. For nothing in truth can replace that true companion. Old friends cannot be created out of hand. Nothing can match the treasure of common memories. . . . It is idle having planted an acorn in the morning to expect that afternoon to sit by an oak, so life goes on. For years we plant the seed, we feel ourselves rich, and then comes other years when time does its work and our plantation is sparse. One by one, our comrades depart, deprive us of their shade.

Her mother had once told her that one could run away from home, from husband, from children, from trouble, but it was impossible to run away from oneself. "You always have to take yourself with you," she said. And now, bending towards her mother, Hope wondered if in death you were finally able to run away from yourself. This might be death's gift. She knew that the thought wasn't terribly profound, but she was moved by the notion of completion and of escape.

The next year was kindergarten. On Parents Night we filed in and sat on the little chairs. It was just after the United States had launched its war against Iraq, and the teacher began to describe the children's curriculum for the year, I raised my hand, ever the firebrand, and asked if she'd be teaching the kids about the Gulf War. There was a collective gasp as the other parents looked at me with horror. The teacher paled and said softly, "We're working on colors.

Hope had finally learned to live in the present. Often, when she found herself in a space of tremendous comfort, usually out in nature, or when her children were safe all around her and on the verge of going to bed, she forced herself to take stock. Here you are, Hope, she told herself. What a beautiful moment. You may never again be here at this spot, enjoying the calm. This habit of hers, to acknowledge the immediate and elusive joy of the present, kept her sane.

Wat bepaalt een mens meer dan zijn omgeving? Hij ademt in het ritme van de wind, hij komt tot rust wanneer de zon ondergaat. Hier herinneren de immense bergen en de brandende zon je er voortdurend aan dat je niet meer bent dan een kiezel tussen de rotsen, een rimpeling in de oceaan, een blad in een bos, een grasspriet in het veld. Wie te veel met zichtzelf bezig is, wie denkt hij of zij meer is dan een klein onderdeeltje van de natuur, loopt al snel met zijn kop tegen de muur.

Mike [Nichols] said: Directing a movie is like sex. you never see anyone else doing it, so you're not sure you're doing it right... After the press screening of Murmurs of the Heart, Louis's mom said, "Louis, it brings back such memories!"...

Er liebte das Meer aus tiefen Gründen: aus dem Ruheverlangen des schwer arbeitenden Künstlers, der von der anspruchsvollen Vielgestalt der Erscheinungen an der Brust des Einfachen, Ungeheueren sich zu bergen begehrt; aus einem verbotenen, seiner Aufgabe geradeentgegengesetzten und eben darum verführerischen Hange zum Ungegliederten, Maßlosen, Ewigen, zum Nichts. Am Vollkommenen zu ruhen, ist die Sehnsucht dessen, der sich um das Vortreffliche müht; und ist nicht das Nichts eine Form des Vollkommenen?

There is an elegance to knowing who you are that will help you unfold a sweet tolerance for yourself. Knowing and liking yourself will then allow you to be kind and compassionate to others, deeply aware that they want the same things: love and contentment.

Books were seen as a waste of time. What was the point, unless you were reading for information? To lose oneself in a book was to be slightly wacky, a little greedy and ultimately slothful. There was no value. You couldn't make money from reading a book. A book did not clean bathrooms and waxed floors. It did not put the garden in. You couldn't have a conversation while reading. It was arrogant and alienated others. In short, those who read were wasteful and haughty and incapable of living in the real world. They were dreamers.

Das wirkliche Leben, meint er, sei ja so anders... Jedenfalls das seine, denkt er: da erkennt man keinen klaren Ablauf und keinen roten Faden, da zerrinnt es einfach, ohne Abschnitt und ohne Tat, die Leidenschaft zerrinnt in eine Stimmung, und auch die Entschlüsse sind wie Sand, der leise durch die Finger rinnt, immer wieder nimmt man eine neue Handvoll, und wenn man sie aufmacht, ist wieder nichts darin geblieben, man ist verzweifelt, und auch das zerrinnt, wie die Hoffnung und der Jubel und der Schmerz und alles, wie das ganze Leben.

Only the government could have made a ‘terrorist’ out of Mr. Cromitie, whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in scope….I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that there would have been no crime here except the government instigated it, planned it and brought it to fruition.” Nonetheless,

Alleen in mijn gedichten kan ik wonen, Nooit vond ik ergens anders onderdak; Voor de' eigen haard gevoelde ik nooit een zwak, Een tent werd door den stormwind meegenomen. Alleen in mijn gedichten kan ik wonen. Zoolang ik weet dat ik in wildernis, In steppen, stad en woud dat onderkomen Kan vinden, deert mij geen bekommernis. Het zal lang duren, maar de tijd zal komen Dat voor den nacht mij de oude kracht ontbreekt En tevergeefs om zachte woorden smeekt, Waarmee 'k weleer kon bouwen, en de aarde Mij bergen moet en ik mij neerbuig naar de Plek waar mijn graf in 't donker openbreekt.

Goed,' zei de dwerg met de bruine baard. 'Als we pal naar het westen lopen kunnen we aan het eind van de week bij de bergen zijn, en dan ben je binnen tien dagen weer in je paleis in Kanselaire.' 'Ja,' zei de koningin... Er zijn keuzes, dacht ze toen ze lang genoeg had gezeten. Er zijn altijd keuzes. Ze maakte er een. De koningin begon te lopen en de dwergen volgden haar. 'Je weet toch wel dat we naar het oosten lopen, hè?' vroeg een van de dwergen. 'Jazeker,' zei de koningin. 'Dan is het goed,' zei de dwerg. Ze liepen naar het oosten, met z'n vieren, weg van de zonsondergang en het land dat ze kenden, de nacht in.

Some days it seems like every lowlife in town has Tail ’Em and Nail ’Em on their grease-stained Rolodex. A number of phone messages have piled up on the answering machine, breathers, telemarketers, even a few calls to do with tickets currently active. After some triage on the playback, Maxine returns an anxious call from a whistle-blower at a snack-food company over in Jersey which has been secretly negotiating with ex-employees of Krispy Kreme for the illegal purchase of top-secret temperature and humidity settings on the donut purveyor’s “proof box,” along with equally classified photos of the donut extruder, which however now seem to be Polaroids of auto parts taken years ago in Queens, Photoshopped and whimsically at that. “I’m beginning to think something’s funny about this deal,” her contact’s voice trembling a little, “maybe not even legit.” “Maybe, Trevor, because it’s a criminal act under Title 18?” “It’s an FBI sting operation!” Trevor screams. “Why would the FBI—” “Duh-uh? Krispy Kreme? On behalf of their brothers in law enforcement at all levels?” “All right. I’ll talk to them at the Bergen County DA, maybe they’ve heard something—” “Wait, wait, somebody’s coming, now they saw me, oh! maybe I better—” The line goes dead. Always happens.

What keeps [friends] together? Common history, some shared conquests, a delight in ideas and people and living. But they will also be distinguished by their ability to listen to you. They will not be uncritical, but they will understand and accept you. You will be interested in each other's happiness and well-being.

When told the capital of South Korea, Seoul, was so close to the North Korean border that millions of people would likely die in the first hours of any all-out war, Trump had a bold response, "They have to move." The officials in the oval office weren't sure if he was joking. He raised his voice. "They have to move!

After my classes at Brooklyn College I would sometimes leave the train at Bergen Street to visit my mother. If she knew I was coming she’d make soda bread so warm and delicious it melted in the mouth as fast as the butter she slathered on it. She made tea in a teapot and couldn’t help sniffing at the idea of tea bags. I told her tea bags were just a convenience for people with busy lives and she said no one is so busy they can’t take time to make a decent cup of tea and if you are that busy you don’t deserve a decent cup of tea for what is it all about anyway? Are we put into this world to be busy or to chat over a nice cup of tea?

Hope knew that her thinking regarding books went contrary to the general sentiment of the people of Eden. Books were seen as a waste of time. What was the point, unless you were reading for information? To lose oneself in a book was to be slightly wacky, a little greedy, and ultimately slothful. There was no value. You couldn't make money from reading a book. A book did not give you clean bathrooms and waxed floors. It did not put the garden in. You couldn't have a conversation while reading. It was arrogant and alienated others. In short, those who read were wasteful and haughty and incapable of living in the real world. They were dreamers.

It also imposed Taliban-style rule (a draconian implementation of sharia, or Koranic, law that has involved throwing homosexuals to their deaths from tall buildings, lopping off the hands of thieves, beheading women accused of “sorcery,” and enslaving and raping minority women) over some eight million Syrians and Iraqis. Within

Ik wou dat ik iemand was, dat denk ik ondertussen, en dat ik alles kon, of toch datgene wat ze van mij wilden. Ik wou het zelfvertrouwen van dat ene kind met die grote oren. En het grapje waar die mevrouw met dat haar, daar achter dat ene raam, zo om moet lachen, ik wou stoute schoenen om aan te trekken. Ik wou glanzend geluk en onwerkelijk grote liefde. Ik wou troost voor mij en voor iedereen die dat nodig heeft. Ik wou dat ik steengoed was in wat ik deed. Ik wou dat ik hem kon geven wat hij dan verlangt. Ik wou een vader die ik meer kon helpen. Ik wou een moeder. Ik wou de mist boven de bergen, dingen om nooit meer te vergeten, en onweerstaanbaar zijn, dat ook nog.

Bin Laden was eager to memorialize the 9/11 attacks with another spectacular one. He told his deputies that killing President Barack Obama was a high priority, but he also had General David Petraeus, the then-commander in Afghanistan, in his sights. Bin Laden told his team not to bother with plots against Vice President Joe Biden, whom he considered “totally unprepared” for the post of president.

In fact, the poor are generally too busy making ends meet to be the vanguard of any revolution. History shows that terrorism is a largely bourgeois endeavor, from the Russian anarchists of the late nineteenth century to the German Marxists of the Baader-Meinhof Gang of the 1970s, to the apocalyptic Japanese terror cult Aum Shinrikyo of the 1990s. Islamist terrorists, it turns out, are no different.

On the choppers were twenty-three SEALs and a Pakistani-American who spoke the local language, Pashto. If crowds gathered at the Abbottabad compound, he would tell people there was a Pakistani military exercise going on and they should go home. Also on the flight to Abbottabad was a dog named Cairo, who would prevent “squirters” from sneaking out of the compound, sniff out any explosives, and hunt for possible safe rooms.

Matthew’s case underlines a surprising fact: since 9/11 the FBI has organized more jihadist terrorist plots in the United States than any other organization. Al-Qaeda’s core group in Pakistan has mounted six terrorist plots (of varying degrees of sophistication); al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen has mounted two; the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate have each mounted one. Three other plots were engineered by the NYPD. The FBI has been responsible for thirty.

The Blood player could acquire a Rose item, but only by handing over an atrocity, thus leaving himself with less ammunition and the Rose player with more. If he was a skilful player he could attack the Rose side by means of the atrocities in his possession, loot the human achievement, and transfer it to his side of the board. The player who managed to retain the most human achievements by Time’s Up was the winner. With points off, naturally, for achievements destroyed through his own error and folly and cretinous play. The exchange rates – one Mona Lisa equalled Bergen-Belsen, one Armenian genocide equalled the Ninth Symphony plus three Great Pyramids – were suggested, but there was room for haggling. To do this you needed to know the numbers – the total number of corpses for the atrocities, the latest open-market price for the artworks; or, if the artworks had been stolen, the amount paid out by the insurance policy. It was a wicked game.

Hitler was invading every European country surrounding Germany, and it was obvious that eventually we would also be at war. At the time, some Americans joined the German American Bund that backed what Hitler was doing. Others advocated that we stay out of the war.... Charles Lindbergh was of that persuasion and supported the isolationist “America First Movement,” advocating that the United States remain neutral. You could not blame people for their hostile feelings towards the German-Americans, when Nazi Bund meetings were being held at many locations around New York City, as well as in the neighboring Schuetzenpark, the German word for the riflemen’s or shooters’ park, in North Bergen. In April of 1941, after President Roosevelt accused Lindbergh of being a fascist sympathizer, Lindbergh resigned his commission as a colonel in the United States Army Air Forces. Later in the war, Lindbergh flew 50 combat missions in the Pacific Theater as a civilian consultant, but Roosevelt refused to reinstate his commission. The majority of Americans just wanted to stay out of what they considered a European matter.

He was sitting at his desk. He had to get some relief from seeing what he did not want to see. The factory was empty. There was only the night watchman who’d come on duty with his dogs. He was down in the parking lot, patrolling the perimeter of the double-thick chain-link fence, a fence topped off, after the riots, with supplemental scrolls of razor ribbon that were to admonish the boss each and every morning he pulled in and parked his car, “Leave! Leave! Leave!” He was sitting alone in the last factory left in the worst city in the world. And it was worse even than sitting there during the riots, Springfield Avenue in flames, South Orange Avenue in flames, Bergen Street under attack, sirens going off, weapons firing, snipers from rooftops blasting the street lights, looting crowds crazed in the street, kids carrying off radios and lamps and television sets, men toting armfuls of clothing, women pushing baby carriages heavily loaded with cartons of liquor and cases of beer, people pushing pieces of new furniture right down the center of the street, stealing sofas, cribs, kitchen tables, stealing washers and dryers and ovens—stealing not in the shadows but out in the open. Their strength is tremendous, their teamwork is flawless. The shattering of glass windows is thrilling. The not paying for things is intoxicating. The American appetite for ownership is dazzling to behold. This is shoplifting. Everything free that everyone craves, a wonton free-for-all free of charge, everyone uncontrollable with thinking, Here it is! Let it come! In Newark’s burning Mardi Gras streets, a force is released that feels redemptive, something purifying is happening, something spiritual and revolutionary perceptible to all. The surreal vision of household appliances out under the stars and agleam in the glow of the flames incinerating the Central Ward promises the liberation of all mankind. Yes, here it is, let it come, yes, the magnificent opportunity, one of human history’s rare transmogrifying moments: the old ways of suffering are burning blessedly away in the flames, never again to be resurrected, instead to be superseded, within only hours, by suffering that will be so gruesome, so monstrous, so unrelenting and abundant, that its abatement will take the next five hundred years. The fire this time—and next? After the fire? Nothing. Nothing in Newark ever again.

Należymy do gatunku składającego słowa jak ryba ikrę, produkujemy więcej kultury, niż jesteśmy w stanie przetrawić. W ciągu ostatnich lat pedantycznie zwalczaliśmy graffiti na stacjach metra, a jednocześnie wydajemy miliony koron na budowę nowych bibliotek narodowych. Tymczasem zapis pamięci narodowej może przyjąć również formę graffiti. Nietzsche porównał człowieka przejedzonego kulturą do węża, który połknął zająca, a teraz drzemie w słońcu, nie będą w stanie się ruszyć. Czas epigramatów już minął. Na przystani w Bryggen w Bergen znaleziono niewielki kawałeczek drewna z takim oto napisem runicznym: Ingebjørg kochała mnie, kiedy byłem w Stavanger. Fakt ten musiał wywrzeć pewne wrażenie na autorze napisu, podobnie zresztą jak na czytelniku, żyjącym osiemset czy dziewięćset lat później. Dzisiaj oszczędny w słowach autor, chcąc uwiecznić jedną schadzkę z Ingebjørg, dorzuciłby do pamięci potomnych czerystustronicową powieść. Albo też zadręczyłby życie swoim współczesnym wpadającymi w ucho popularnymi piosenkami w stylu 'Nie ma jak z Ingebjørg, nie ma jak z Ingebjørg'. Paradoks polega na tym, że gdyby przez wszystkie osiemset lat napisano równie wiele powieści, jak w latach siedemdziesiątych, to nikt z nas nie byłby w stanie przebrnąć przez tak obfitą tradycję piśmiennictwa i nie dotarłby do prostej, lecz przyjemnej historii o Ingebjørg. (...) Namiętna historia miłośna została odarta ze wszystkiego aż do kości, lecz mimo to niesie za sobą mnóstwo konotacji. Ponadto pewnych rzeczy czytelnik może się domyślić. Dostał do ręki coś, nad czym dalej może pracować jego wyobraźnia. Po czterystustronicowej powieści trudno jest samemu coś wymyślić.

As soon as the Rabbi of Bluzhov had finished the ceremony of kindling the lights, Zamietchkowski elbowed his way to the rabbi and said, “Spira, you are a clever and honest person. I can understand your need to light Hanukkah candles in these wretched times. I can even understand the historical note of the second blessing, ‘Who wroughtest miracles for our fathers in days of old, at this season.’ But the fact that you recited the third blessing is beyond me. How could you thank God and say ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has kept us alive, and hast preserved us, and enabled us to reach this season’? How could you say it when hundreds of dead Jewish bodies are literally lying within the shadows of the Hanukkah lights, when thousands of living Jewish skeletons are walking around in camp, and millions more are being massacred? For this you are thankful to God? For this you praise the Lord? This you call ‘keeping us alive’?” “Zamietchkowski, you are a hundred percent right,” answered the rabbi. “When I reached the third blessing, I also hesitated and asked myself, what should I do with this blessing? I turned my head in order to ask the Rabbi of Zaner and other distinguished rabbis who were standing near me, if indeed I might recite the blessing. But just as I was turning my head, I noticed that behind me a throng was standing, a large crowd of living Jews, their faces expressing faith, devotion, and concentration as they were listening to the rite of the kindling of the Hanukkah lights. I said to myself, if God, blessed be He, has such a nation that at times like these, when during the lighting of the Hanukkah lights they see in front of them the heaps of bodies of their beloved fathers, brothers, and sons, and death is looking from every corner, if despite all that, they stand in throngs and with devotion listening to the Hanukkah blessing ‘Who wroughtest miracles for our fathers in days of old, at this season’; if, indeed, I was blessed to see such a people with so much faith and fervor, then I am under a special obligation to recite the third blessing.”2 Some years after liberation, the Rabbi of Bluzhov, now residing in Brooklyn, New York, received regards from Mr. Zamietchkowski. Zamietchkowski asked the son of the Skabiner Rabbi to tell Israel Spira, the Rabbi of Bluzhov, that the answer he gave him that dark Hanukkah night in Bergen Belsen had stayed with him ever since, and was a constant source of inspiration during hard and troubled times. Based

Since deportation was the most devastating scenario, we lived in constant fear that each one of us and our close relatives would be taken away. You would wake up one day and your cousins were gone; the next day, your grandmother had been deported and disappeared as if she had never existed. Those were traumatic times.