Quotes from book
Oracle Night

Oracle Night
Paul Auster

Oracle Night is a 2003 novel by American author Paul Auster.

Paul Auster photo

“[G]overnments always need enemies, even when they're not at war. If you don't have a real enemy, you make one up and spread the word. It scares the population, and when the people are scared, they tend not to step out of line.”

Paul Auster book Oracle Night

Paul Auster, Oracle Night, New York: Henry Holt and Company, p. 168.
Oracle Night (2003)

Paul Auster photo

“Every time my nose gushed blood, I felt like a little boy who'd wet his pants. I jumped out of the chair, pressed a handkerchief against my face, and hustled toward the nearest bathroom […] How red the blood looked against the whiteness of the porcelain sink, I thought. How vividly imagined that color was, how aesthetically shocking. The other fluids that came out of us were dull in comparison, the palest of squirts. Whitish spittle, milky semen, yellow pee, green-brown mucus. We excreted autumn and winter colors, but running invisibly through our veins, the very stuff that kept us alive, was the crimson of a mad artist—a red as brilliant as fresh paint.”

Paul Auster book Oracle Night

Paul Auster, Oracle Night, New York: Henry Holt and Company, pp. 41-42.
Oracle Night (2003)

Paul Auster photo

“April 1945. My unit was in Germany, and we were the ones who liberated Dachau. Thirty thousands breathing skeletons. You've seen the pictures, but the pictures don't tell you what it was like. You have to go there and smell it for yourself; you have to be there and touch it with your own hands. Human beings did it to human beings, and they did it with a clear conscience. That was the end of mankind […] I'm sure you've read the stories about how some of them couldn't stop eating. The starved ones. They'd thought about food for so long, they couldn't help it. They ate until their stomachs burst, and they died. Hundreds of them.”

Paul Auster book Oracle Night

Paul Auster, Oracle Night, New York: Henry Holt and Company, p. 92.
Oracle Night (2003)

Similar authors

Paul Auster photo
Paul Auster9
novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter 1947
Christopher Morley photo
Christopher Morley30
American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet None
Herta Müller photo
Herta Müller28
German-Romanian novelist, poet and essayist None
Marcel Proust photo
Marcel Proust41
French novelist, critic, and essayist None
Jacques Prevért photo
Jacques Prevért12
French poet, screenwriter None
Paul Valéry photo
Paul Valéry89
French poet, essayist, and philosopher None
Maurice Maeterlinck photo
Maurice Maeterlinck21
Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist None
Cesare Pavese photo
Cesare Pavese137
Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator None
Mario Benedetti photo
Mario Benedetti4
Uruguayan journalist, novelist, and poet None
George Raymond Richard Martin photo
George Raymond Richard Martin35
American writer, screenwriter and television producer None