In the end, in England, when you want to find out how people are feeling, you always go to the pubs. Martha Gellhorn More Quotes by Martha Gellhorn More Quotes From Martha Gellhorn Joseph McCarthy, the Junior Republican Senator from Wisconsin, ruled America like devil king for four years. His purges were an American mirror image of Stalin's purges, an unnoticed similarity. Martha Gellhorn mirrorskingsyears [On Paris:] I do not know any city so beautiful and you can be unhappy there and notice your unhappiness less, having the city to look at. Martha Gellhorn pariscitiesbeautiful It is charming the way everyone in the South says, 'Come back.' This is the regulation farewell at gas stations, soda fountains, general stores, tourist camps. 'Come back,' they call, 'come back.' Do they feel marooned in one place, lost, needing to believe someone will return to share their exile on the similar main streets, in the varied but always new-looking land? Martha Gellhorn farewelllandbelieve I see mysteries and complications wherever I look, and I have never met a steadily logical person. Martha Gellhorn innovationcreativityimagination It is alleged that half a million Spanish men, women and children fled to France after the Franco victory. Martha Gellhorn victorymenchildren You have to stop living in order to write. Martha Gellhorn writingorder Furthermore, they were constantly informed by all the camp authorities that they had been abandoned by the world: they were beggars and lucky to receive the daily soup of starvation. Martha Gellhorn luckysoupworld I used to write letters to the wounded in the Palace Hotel, and I used to drive a station wagon with blood in bottles to a battalion aid station. Martha Gellhorn bottleswritingblood We lisp in numbers, in the U.S. We are deluged by ample, often mysterious statistics. ... Like many in this country, I have come to regard statistics with doubt and merely as a hint of the probable shape of fact. Martha Gellhorn datanumberscountry A broken heart is such a shabby thing, like poverty and failure and the incurable diseases which are also deforming. I hate it and am ashamed of it, and I must somehow repair this heart and put it back into its normal condition, as a tough somewhat scarred but operating organ. Martha Gellhorn broken-heartdiseasehate I feel very troubled in the head and heart. Martha Gellhorn head-and-heartheartfeels If I practised sex, out of moral conviction, that was one thing; but to enjoy it... seemed a defeat. Martha Gellhorn defeatmoralsex [On the United States:] We are a wildly energetic people in our pursuit of pleasure, let alone in our pursuit of money, and we are very odd to look at as we go about our lives. Martha Gellhorn united-statespeoplelooks I followed the war wherever I could reach it. Martha Gellhorn umpireswar 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 Martha Gellhorn shouldwritingwar War happens to people, one by one. That is really all I have to say and it seems to me I have been saying it forever. Unless they are immediate victims, the majority of mankind behaves as if war was an act of God which could not be prevented; or they behave as if war elsewhere was none of their business. It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination. Martha Gellhorn imaginationwarpeople After the desperate years of their own war, after six years of repression inside Spain and six years of horror in exile, these people remain intact in spirit. They are armed with a transcendent faith; they have never won, and yet they have never accepted defeat. Martha Gellhorn warpeopleyears People may correctly remember the events of twenty years ago (a remarkable feat), but who remembers his fears, his disgusts, his tone of voice? It is like trying to bring back the weather of that time. Martha Gellhorn voiceweatheryears But now that the guerrilla fighting is over, the Spaniards are again men without a country or families or homes or work, though everyone appreciates very much what they did. Martha Gellhorn fightinghomecountry I didn't write. I just wandered about. Martha Gellhorn writing
