“When a war starts people are forced to become soldiers. They carry guns and go to the front lines and have to kill soldiers on the other side. As many as they possibly can. Nobody cares whether you like killing other people or not. It's just something you have to do. Otherwise you're the one who gets killed." Johnnie Walker pointed his index finger at Nakata's chest. "Bang!"”

—  Haruki Murakami , book Kafka on the Shore

he said. "Human history in a nutshell."
Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter 16

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "When a war starts people are forced to become soldiers. They carry guns and go to the front lines and have to kill sold…" by Haruki Murakami?
Haruki Murakami photo
Haruki Murakami 655
Japanese author, novelist 1949

Related quotes

Eddie Izzard photo

“They say that 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' Well I think the gun helps. If you just stood there and yelled BANG, I don't think you'd kill too many people.”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer
Carl Sandburg photo

“The little girl saw her first troop parade and asked,
"What are those?"
"Soldiers."
"What are soldiers?"
"They are for war. They fight and each tries to kill as many of the other side as he can."
The girl held still and studied.
"Do you know … I know something?"
"Yes, what is it you know?"”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

"Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come."
"The People, Yes" (1936)

Doug Stanhope photo

“(on people who join the military) As long as the people who kinda wanna go kill other people are going to go kill other people who kinda wanna go kill other people, you're killing all the right people and opening up all the best parking spaces.”

Doug Stanhope (1967) American stand-up comedian, actor, and author

Deadbeat Hero (2004)

Jonathan Swift photo

“A soldier is a "Yahoo" hired to kill in cold blood as many of his own Species, who have never offended him, as possibly he can.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet
Michael Prysner photo

“Poor and working people in this country are sent to kill poor and working people in other country to make the rich richer. Without racism, soldiers would realize that they have more in common with the Iraqi people than they do with the billionaires who send us to war.”

Michael Prysner (1983) American anti-war political activist

"Our Real Enemies"

Yagyū Munenori photo

“It is bias to think that the art of war is just for killing people. It is not to kill people, it is to kill evil. It is a stratagem to give life to many people by killing the evil of one person.”

Yagyū Munenori (1571–1646) samurai and daimyo of the early Edo period

As quoted in The Japanese Art of War (1991) by Thomas Cleary

Curtis LeMay photo

“Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time… I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal…. Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.”

Curtis LeMay (1906–1990) American general and politician

On the morality of the firebombing campaign http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/peopleevents/pandeAMEX61.html)

“Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world's problems?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages 1985-1995: An Exhibition Catalogue

George Bernard Shaw photo

“If you're going to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh; otherwise they'll kill you.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Credited to Shaw in the lead in to the mockumentary C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004) and other recent works, but this or slight variants of it are also sometimes attributed to W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, and Oscar Wilde. It might possibly be derived from Shaw's statement in John Bull's Other Island (1907): "My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world."
Another possibility is that it is derived from Shaw's characteristic of Mark Twain: "He has to put things in such a way as to make people who would otherwise hang him believe he is joking."
Variants:
If you are going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
Disputed

Related topics