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The mother was looking at nothing and listening to nothing but herself. __t__l kill me, doctor! I__l die of shame!_ I made no attempt to dissuade her. I didn__ know what to do. We could see the father pacing back and forth in the little dining room next door. Apparently he hadn__ finished composing his attitude for the occasion. Maybe he was waiting for things to come to a head before selecting a posture. He was in a kind of limbo. People live from one play to the next. In between, before the curtain goes up, they don__ quite know what the plot will be or what part will be right for them, they stand there at a loss, waiting to see what will happen, their instincts folded up like an umbrella, squirming, incoherent, reduced to themselves, that is, to nothing. Cows without a train.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline Journey to the End of the Night
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The mother was looking at nothing and listening to nothing but herself. __t__l kill me, doctor! I__l die of shame!_ I made no attempt to dissuade her. I didn__ know what to do. We could see the father pacing back and forth in the little dining room next door. Apparently he hadn__ finished composing his attitude for the occasion. Maybe he was waiting for things to come to a head before selecting a posture. He was in a kind of limbo. People live from one play to the next. In between, before the curtain goes up, they don__ quite know what the plot will be or what part will be right for them, they stand there at a loss, waiting to see what will happen, their instincts folded up like an umbrella, squirming, incoherent, reduced to themselves, that is, to nothing. Cows without a train.
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Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Journey to the End of the Night

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I think, actually I know that it's overwhelmingly possible for men to conduct such atrocities as to kill a man in cold blood, to burn towns and to parade with the the dead on the tips of their swords. People who think they are doing something for the good of all are the most dangerous and stirs their intent deeper. There might have been a time when I thought differently and I would have answered with a quick no but that time had long passed. Do I think it's in human nature to be violent and to succumb to it? Sure I do. It's to justify it, that I think is inhuman.