“When the Chinese Wall was built, where'd the masons go for lunch? When Caesar conquered Gaul, was there not even a cook in the army? When the Armada sank, King Philip wept. Were there no other tears?”

“Who built the seven towers of Thebes?The books are filled with the names of kings.Was it kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?...In the evening when the Chinese wall was finishedWhere did the masons go?...”

“Who built Thebes of the seven gates?In the books you will find the name of kings.Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?And Babylon, many times demolished.Who raised it up so many times? In what housesOf gold-glittering Lima did the builders live?Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finishedDid the masons go? Great RomeIs full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whomDid the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised in song,Only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled AtlantisThe night the ocean engulfed itThe drowning still bawled for their slaves.”

“The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread. When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out "stop!"When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.”

“What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?”

“Why be a man when you can be a success.”

“The war which is comingIs not the first one. There wereOther wars before it.When the last one came to an endThere were conquerors and conquered.Among the conquered the common peopleStarved. Among the conquerorsThe common people starved too.”