James Carroll Quotations

We cloak ourselves in cold indifference to the unnecessary suffering of others - even when we cause it.

Memory is a political act. Forgetfulness is the handmaiden of tyranny.

We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking. We move along the surface of things....but, there are times when we must stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or in its memory. We listen, and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.

It takes a disciplined imagination to acknowledge that the less personal savageries of bombs, missiles, artillery and heavy weapons are, to those blown to smithereens, also barbaric. The main horror of what the coalition is doing is not a matter of the occasional soldier who, in the heat of battle, commits a war crime, but the steady destruction rained on cities, villages, the Iraqi people. This violence is wreaked calmly, from a distance, within the rules of engagement. The war itself is the American war crime.

There are times when we stop, we sit still. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.

The whole story of human and personal progress is an unmitigated tale of denials today-denials of rest, denials or repose and comfort and ease and pleasure-that tomorrow may be richer.

American fighters of the Pacific War were not heroes. The desperation of island combat included exchanged barbarities of which no one would willingly speak for a generation. On the American side, there were foul racism, vengeful refusals to take prisoners, a generalized brutality that extended to a savage air war.

We carefully nurture a spirit of detachment toward the wars we pay for.

Generally speaking, these terms (with foreign governments) have gotten much tougher in the last 20 years. In 1986, the price of oil was $10 to $20 a barrel.

It has continued to drop in the Department of Interior budget, particularly fish and wild life.