Jacobo Timerman Quotes & Sayings

One point has already been proven. Everything that happened once can happen again. — Jacobo Timerman

The entire affective world, constructed over the years with utmost difficulty, collapses with a kick in the father's genitals, a smack on the mother's face, an obscene insult to the sister, or the sexual violation of a daughter. Suddenly an entire culture based on familial love, devotion, the capacity for mutual sacrifice collapses. Nothing is possible in such a universe, and that is precisely what the torturers know ... From my cell, I'd hear the whispered voices of children trying to learn what was happening to their parents, and I'd witness the efforts of daughters to win over a guard, to arouse a feeling of tenderness in him, to incite the hope of some lovely future relationship between them in order to learn what was happening to her mother, to get an orange sent to her, to get permission for her to go to the bathroom. — Jacobo Timerman

Now they're really amused, and burst into laughter. Someone tries a variation while still clapping hands: 'Clipped prick ... clipped prick.' Whereupon they begin alternating while clapping their hands: 'Jew ... Clipped prick ... Jew ... Clipped prick.' It seems they're no longer angry, merely having a good time. I keep bouncing in the chair and moaning as the electric shocks penetrate [ ... ] — Jacobo Timerman

We believed ourselves indestructable ... watching only the madmen outside our frontiers, and we remained defenseless against our own madmen. — Jacobo Timerman

No one had to impose my enemies on me. I selected them myself. I didn't avoid them: I pointed them out, marked them, attacked them. — Jacobo Timerman

I devoted myself simply to being a solitary person entrusted with a specific task. — Jacobo Timerman