Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit.
Martha GellhornRead
Then somebody suggested I should write about the war, and I said I didn't know anything about the war. I did not understand anything about it. I didn't see how I could write it
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the uncertainty and lack of knowledge one can feel when confronted with complex topics like war.
In this quote, Martha Gellhorn expresses her feeling of inadequacy and unfamiliarity when asked to write about the war. It highlights the struggles of conveying experiences and emotions tied to war, particularly when one does not fully comprehend its intricacies, demonstrating the challenge writers face when tackling profound and chaotic subjects like conflict.
Themes
WarWritingConflictKnowledgeUncertaintyExperience
In practice
Example use cases
During a panel discussion on the representation of war in literature.
More from Martha Gellhorn
All quotes βIt would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.
Martha GellhornRead
the ends never justify the means because IT never ends.
Martha GellhornRead
Citizenship is a tough occupation which obliges the citizen to make his own informed opinion and stand by it.
Martha GellhornRead
I followed the war wherever I could reach it.
Martha GellhornRead
Thousand got away to other countries; thousands returned to Spain tempted by false promises of kindness. By the tens of thousands, these Spaniards died of neglect in the concentration camps.
Martha GellhornRead
Similar quotes
You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about.
William Tecumseh ShermanRead
The object of defense is preservation; and since it is easier to hold ground than to take it, defense is easier than attack. But defense has a passive purpose: preservation; and attack a positive one: conquest.... If defense is the stronger form of war, yet has a negative object, it follows that it should be used only so long as weakness compels, and be abandoned as soon as we are strong enough to pursue a positive object.
Carl Von ClausewitzRead
No place is safe - no place is at peace. There is no place where a women and her daughter can hide and be at peace. The war comes through the air, bombs drop in the night. Quiet people go out in the morning, and see air-fleets passing overhead - dripping death - dripping death!
H. G. WellsRead
We sit in calm, airy, silent rooms opening upon sunlit and embowered lawns, not a sound except of summer and of husbandry disturbs the peace; but seven million men, any ten thousand of whom could have annihilated the ancient armies, are in ceaseless battle from the Alps to the Ocean.
Winston ChurchillRead
These are they whose youth was violently severed by war and death; a word on the telephone, a scribbled line on paper, and their future ceased. They have built up their lives again, but their safety is not absolute, their fortress not impregnable.
Winifred HoltbyRead
A true war story is never moral.
Tim O'BrienRead