I'm currently reading extremely loud and incredibly close by Jonathan safran foer. and loving it. the following passage just caught me - something about the simple beauty of damaged people helping each other because they can't help themselves, I guess...
[mr. black is talking about a community in Russia of artists who had been forced to flee the cities, and had covered their new place in paintings - the walls, the ceilings, the plates, the windows, everything. also, mr. black shouts because he's a bit deaf.]
"Stalin found out about the community and sent his thugs in, just a few days before I got there, to break all their arms! that was worse than killing them! it was a horrible sight, Oskar: their arms in crude splints, straight in front of them like zombies! they couldn't feed themselves, because they couldn't get their hands to their mouths! so you know what they did!" "they starved?" "they fed each other! that's the difference between heaven and hell! in hell we starve! in heaven we feed each other!" "I don't believe in the afterlife." "neither do I, but I believe in the story!"
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