Sarajevo Quotes

“It screamed downward, splitting air and sky without effort. A target expanded in size, brought into focus by time and velocity. There was a moment before impact that was the last instant of things as they were. Then the visible world exploded.”
― Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo

“Grief produces an abundant energy that must find a way to burn itself up. And that is the fundamental problem, one that can take a lifetime to exhaust.”
― Bill Carter, Fools Rush In: A True Story of War and Redemption

“In Sarajevo in 1992, while being shown around the starved, bombarded city by the incomparable John Burns, I experienced four near misses in all, three of them in the course of one day. I certainly thought that the Bosnian cause was worth fighting for and worth defending, but I could not take myself seriously enough to imagine that my own demise would have forwarded the cause. (I also discovered that a famous jaunty Churchillism had its limits: the old war-lover wrote in one of his more youthful reminiscences that there is nothing so exhilarating as being shot at without result. In my case, the experience of a whirring, whizzing horror just missing my ear was indeed briefly exciting, but on reflection made me want above all to get to the airport. Catching the plane out with a whole skin is the best part by far.) Or suppose I had been hit by that mortar that burst with an awful shriek so near to me, and turned into a Catherine wheel of body-parts and (even worse) body-ingredients? Once again, I was moved above all not by the thought that my death would 'count,' but that it would not count in the least.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“I keep thinking about the march I joined today. It's bigger and stronger than war. That's why it will win. The people must be the ones to win, not the war, because war has nothing to do with humanity. War is something inhuman.”
― Zlata Filipović, Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo

“The best example I know, of this astonishingly stupid attitude towards sport, is that of Franz Ferdinand. His, however, was an achievement with the gun. He used to shoot at Konopist with no less than seven weapons and four loaders, and he once killed more than 4,000 birds, himself, in one day. [A propos of statistics and quite beside the point: a Yorkshireman once drank 52½ pints of beer in one hour.] Now why did Franz Ferdinand do this? Even if he shot for twelve hours at a stretch, without pause for luncheon, it means that he killed six birds in each minute of the day. The mere manual labour, a pheasant every ten seconds for twelve successive hours, is enough to make a road-mender stagger; and there is little wonder that, by the time the unhappy archduke had accumulated his collection of 300,000 head of game, he was shooting with rubber pads on his coat and a bandage round his ears. The unfortunate man had practically stunned himself with gunpowder, long before they bagged him also at Sarajevo.”
― T.H. White, England Have My Bones

“In 1914, Franz Ferdinand, the Austrian imperial heir, was shot and killed by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo. Do you know the motive behind the act?

It was in retaliation for the subjugation of the Sebs in Austria.

It was not.Franz Ferdinand had stated his intention to introduce reforms favorable to the Serbs in his empire. Had he survived to ascend the throne, he would have made a revolution unnecessary. In plain terms, he was killed because he was going to give the rebels what they were shouting for. They needed a despot in the palace in order to seize it.

What's good for reform is bad for the reformers”
― Loren D. Estleman, Gas City

“I will not live in a city where dead bodies lie abandoned in the streets, and you will not tell the world I do.”
― Steven Galloway

“The boy's death turned me into a person marked by war: it was the Sarajevo equivalent of a campaign medal, although not one to wear with pride.”
― David Nott, War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line

“Qui è sepolta mezza Sarajevo. Le date di nascita cambiano, quelle di morte si ripetono. Era come un sacco nero, il destino.
La morte fece un raccolto straordinario, in quei tre anni.
La morte è solitudine e loro furono privati anche di quella privatezza, costretti a crepare a grappoli come insetti. Essere derubati della vita sembrava quasi accettabile, alla fine, ma il furto della morte è un'altra storia... finire alla rinfusa, mischiati come panni sporchi, come frutta marcia.”
― Margaret Mazzantini

“satkah te noćas od sitne usamljenosti
dadoh ti ime i prekrih te bojom
u tebe odjenuh svu drskost mladosti
i sjenu ti dadoh, i nazvah te svojom
ni časak stvarnosti u tvom postojanju
ni jedna požuda spuštena uz tijelo
ničeg što misao tjera nedostajanju
ni dašak smrtnosti, ni sjećanje bijelo
tobom sagradih sve moje ludosti
neuhvatnu čežnju i dalekost sreće
sakrih postojanje od svijeta vanjskosti
i jedan život nekuda kreće”
― Adis Ahmethodžić

“Nikad neću zaboraviti teški miris baruta na tom prelijepom proljetnom danu i taj kontrast između prelijepog vremena, prirode i proljeća s jedne strane, i ratnog užasa s druge strane. Koliko nam tako lijepih dana duguju!
Elma Tataragic”
― Nihad M. Kresevljakovic, 2. Maj 1992. Bio je lijep i sunčan dan

“Čekamo da netko dođe i da nas izvede odavde. Iz stana koji nije uništen, ali je sablasan. Čekamo treći maj. Kao da čekamo novu godinu. Jer trećeg maja mora biti bolje. Drugačije. Nije bilo. Samo se na kraju, kad smo završile zakucavanje folija kroz prozore nije više vidjelo ništa. I tako četiri godine.
Vedrana Seksan”
― Nihad M. Kresevljakovic, 2. Maj 1992. Bio je lijep i sunčan dan

“2. maja sam naučila da je strah nešto što osjetiš negdje s prednje strane butina, pa se počne kretati naviše, dok ti ne dođe do pluća, pa malo teže dišeš. A i ruke ti se malo tresu i poprime neku ljubičastu boju. Ali svašta možeš kad moraš.
Amira Sadikovic”
― Nihad M. Kresevljakovic, 2. Maj 1992. Bio je lijep i sunčan dan

“The neighborhood felt like a family. And like every family, there were dysfunctions and disagreements, but everyone knew you could count on each other. Being a Muslim, a Croat, or a Serb was never a source of contention; rather, being a bad neighbor was.”
― Nadija Mujagic, Ten Thousand Shells and Counting: A Memoir

“My mother cried every day, on a cue, as if someone tapped her on a shoulder and said "Go! Now!" She looked thin, and her hair looked disheveled, getting longer, flat on the top with curly remnants from a perm on each side. I didn't know what to say or do partially because she never tried to explain her sudden outbursts, so I thought she wanted us to leave her alone to mourn in peace.”
― Nadija Mujagic, Ten Thousand Shells and Counting: A Memoir

“The newly found peace eventually proved as shell-shocking as the beginning of the war. We couldn't get used to it.”
― Nadija Mujagic, Ten Thousand Shells and Counting: A Memoir

“A little farther south he passes the Music Academy. The building is over a hundred years old, and has been training young musicians for forty. A harp sits atop a cupola facing the street corner. Between the windows of the third and the fourth floor, a rocket-propelled grenade has punched a hole through the wall. Inside, another grenade has blown through the wall in the main concert room, but still Kenan hears the sound of pianos coming from within. Several different pieces are being played in various parts of the building, and the music blends together, sometimes becoming unintelligible, a muddy noise of strings struck by hammers, but every so often one of the songs pauses, creating a space for anothe rto emerge, and a few solitary notes of a melody slip out into the street.”
― Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo

“These are the voices of Sarajevo
This is the price of nationalism and fear
These are the voices of Sarajevo
Bosnians lost everything they held dear”
― Aida Mandic, Justice For Bosnia and Herzegovina