Nazism did not destroy civil society. Bolshevism did destroy civil society. This is one of the reasons for the “miracle” of German recovery, and for … - Martin Amis

Oppression lays down blood-lust. It lays it down like a wine.

What you had to have is usually tabulated as follows: luck; the ability to adapt, immediately and radically; a talent for inconspicuousness; solidarity with another individual or with a group; the preservation of decency (“the people who had no tenets to live by — of whatever nature — generally succumbed” no matter how ruthlessly they struggled); the constantly nurtured conviction of innocence (an essential repeatedly emphasised by Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago); immunity to despair; and, again, luck.

Once, as he inhaled with his customary vehemence, I had a thought that made my armpits come alive.