Quotes by Henri Charrière

I am not a good enough writer to convey the intense emotion I felt over my newfound self-respect. It was a rehabilitation, if not a new life. This imaginary baptism, the immersion in purity, the elevation of my being above the filth in which Id been mired and, overnight, this sense of responsibility, made me into a different man. The convicts complexes that make him hear his chains and suspect hes being watched even after hes freed, everything Id seen, gone through, suffered, everything that was making me tarnished, rotten and dangerous, passively obedient on the surface but terribly dangerous in rebellion, all that had disappeared as if by a miracle.

We have too much technological progress, life is too hectic, and our society has only one goal: to invent still more technological marvels to make life even easier and better. The craving for every new scientific discovery breeds a hunger for greater comfort and the constant struggle to achieve it. All that kills the soul, kills compassion, understanding, nobility. It leaves no time for caring what happens to other people, least of all criminals. Even the officials in Venezuelas remote areas are better for theyre also concerned with public peace. It gives them many headaches, but they seem to believe that bringing about a mans salvation is worth the effort. I find that magnificent.

The important thing was that we were alive...

Forgive those who have made you suffer.

When youre suffering, youre oversensitive to everything.

The tears in my pus-filled eyes became a thousand little crystals of ever color. Like stained-glass windows, I thought. God is with you today, Papi! In the midst of natures monstrous elements, in the wind, the immenseness of the sea, the depth of the waves, the imposing green roof of the bush, you feel your own infinitesimal smallness, and perhaps its here, without looking for Him, that you find God, that you touch Him with your finger. I had sensed Him at night during the thousands of hours I had spent buried alive in dank dungeons without a ray of sun; I touched Him today in a sun that would devour everything too weak to resist it. I touched God, I felt Him around me, inside me. He even whispered in my ear: You will suffer; you will suffer more. But this time I am on your side. You will be free. You will, I promise you.

Those who havent been exposed to the hypocrisies of a civilized education react to things naturally, as they happen. It is in the here and now that they are either happy or unhappy, joyful or sad, interested or indifferent.