I would have done it all again. I would have destroyed them all. Yet I would have spared one. I would have spared her that showed me Him whose presence I had not fathomed or maybe never even known. Great God, how early it is! Until now I had almost forgotten His name. “Come!” the voice booms, but commanding me now: Come, My son! I turn in surrender. Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Oh how bright and fair the morning star …
William Styron Connected to the Carolinas
Source
Part IV : "It Is Done…"
- work
- The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)
- year
- 1967
Cite this record
“I would have done it all again. I would have destroyed them …” William Styron. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-990B2DDCBE. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/990b2ddcbe
More from William Styron
For in virtually any other serious sickness, a patient who felt similar devastation would be lying flat in bed, possibly sedated and hooked up to the tubes and wires of life-support systems, but at the very least in a posture of repose and in an isolated setting. His invalidism would be necessary, unquestioned and honorably attained. However, the sufferer from depression has no such option and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must, despite the anguish devouring his brain, present a face approximating the one that is associated with ordinary events and companionship. He must try to utter small talk, and be responsive to questions, and knowingly nod and frown and, God help him, even smile.
Neither the Protestant church nor Anglo-American law was equipped to cope with the staggering problem of the status of the Negro: forced to choose between regarding him as a moral human being and as property, they chose the definition of property. The result was the utter degradation of a people. It was an oppression unparalled in human history. This is the problem we are faced with today: too many white Americans still deny the Negro his position as a moral human being.
A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.