Two important things are to have a genuine interest in people and to be kind to them. Kindness, I’ve discovered, is everything.
For those who are willing to make an effort, great miracles and wonderful treasures are in store.
What do they know-all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world – about such as you? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.
It is a general rule that when the grain of truth cannot be found, men will swallow great helpings of falsehood.
When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself.
We must believe in free will – we have no choice.
In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they’re the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.
As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.
Life is God’s novel. Let him write it.
Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why then should man expect mercy from God? It is
unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give.
Whenever I’m in trouble, I pray. And because I’m in trouble all of the time, I pray almost constantly.
There are 500 reasons I write for children…. Children read books, not reviews. They don’t give a hoot about the critics…. They don’t read to free themselves of guilt, to quench their thirst for rebellion, or to get rid of alienation. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff…. They don’t expect their beloved writer to redeem humanity. Young as they are, they know that it is not in his power. Only the adults have such childish illusions.
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens.
But if we have people who have the power to tell a story, there will always be readers.
People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times.
Night is a time of rigor, but also of mercy. There are truths which one can see only when it’s dark
Sometimes love is stronger than a man’s convictions.
I believe in free will. I have no choice.
Men want all women to lie down as whores and get up as virgins.
We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions.
Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge.
Three characteristics a work of fiction must possess in order to be successful:
1. It must have a precise and suspenseful plot.
2. The author must feel a passionate urge to write it.
3. He must have the conviction, or at least the illusion, that he is the only one who can handle this particular theme.
If you keep saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet.
As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behavior toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right.
The more you see what other people do, the more you learn about yourself.
