Informer Quotes

My name's Alis K. From now on you will be Willy. Come on, let's push the bicycles for a bit."

Ingrid aka 'Alis K'
The Informer ~ Steen Langstrup

This bill will require the creation of a Federal police force of mammoth proportions. It also bids fair to result in the development of an 'informer' psychology in great areas of our national life-neighbors spying on neighbors, workers spying on workers, business spying on businessmen-were those who would harass their fellow citizens for selfish and narrow purposes will have ample inducement to do so. These, the Federal police force an 'informer' psychology, are the hallmarks of the police state and landmarks in the destruction of a free society. ~ Barry Goldwater

There are criminals everywhere these days, you know. One might end up missing the police! Who would have thought that possible?
The Maid
The Informer by Steen Langtrup ~ Steen Langstrup

Anger is always concerned with individuals, ... whereas hatred is directed also against classes: we all hate any thief and any informer. Moreover, anger can be cured by time; but hatred cannot. The one aims at giving pain to its object, the other at doing him harm; the angry man wants his victim to feel; the hater does not mind whether they feel or not. ~ Aristotle.

Don't you know yet, he said, that an idle and selfish class loves to see mischief being made, even if it is made at its own expense? Its own life being all a matter of pose and gesture, it is unable to realize the power and the danger of a real movement and of words that have no sham meaning. It is all fun and sentiment. It is sufficient, for instance, to point out the attitude of the old French aristocracy towards the philosophers whose words were preparing the Great Revolution. Even in England, where you have some common-sense, a demagogue has only to shout loud enough and long enough to find some backing in the very class he is shouting at. You, too, like to see mischief being made.
The demagogue carries the amateurs of emotion with him. Amateurism in this, that, and the other thing is a delightfully easy way of killing time, and feeding one's own vanity--the silly vanity of being abreast with the ideas of the day after to-morrow. Just as good and otherwise harmless people will join you in ecstasies over your collection without having the slightest notion in what its marvellousness really consists. [The informer] ~ Joseph Conrad

Sneaking out at night. You think you're so clever, but you're not. Either you're a saboteur, Johannes, or you've got a mistress.
The Reverend's wife, Grete
The Informer ~ Steen Langstrup

We saved the lives of a whole family that night. Children, parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, all sailed to safety in Sweden inside a little fisherman's boat."

Johannes aka 'BB'
The Informer by Steen Langstrup ~ Steen Langstrup

You just hang in there, boy, hang in with that apprenticeship of yours, do you hear me? You are lucky they would even take someone like you. You're a child of the slums. A ragtag. On top of that, you're a whining piece of shit. Nobody will ever do anything for you. Do you understand what I'm saying? They'll let you starve to death, no problem. Nobody is going to cry on your grave.
Poul-Erik's Mother
The Informer by Steen Langstrup ~ Steen Langstrup

In July 1958, Cristoforo Rubino became another informer to fall before testifying against Mafia drug traffickers. A week before he was to testify before a grand jury investigating Vito Genovese and other traffickers, Rubino was shot dead on a Brooklyn sidewalk.98 ~ C. Alexander Hortis

The Indians were Araucanians from the south of Chile; several hundreds in number, and highly disciplined. They first appeared in two bodies on a neighbouring hill; having there dismounted, and taken off their fur mantles, they advanced naked to the charge. The only weapon of an Indian is a very long bamboo or chuzo, ornamented with ostrich feathers, and pointed by a sharp spear-head. My informer seemed to remember with the greatest horror the quivering of these chuzos as they approached near. When close, the cacique Pincheira hailed the besieged to give up their arms, or he would cut all their throats. As this would probably have been the result of their entrance under any circumstances, the answer was given by a volley of musketry. ~ Charles Darwin

He went into the Gray Joy, drank a glass of Arkanarian brew, patted the hostess's cheek, and deftly used one of his swords to flip the table of the usual informer, who was gawking at him with empty eyes. Then he walked over to a far corner and tracked down a shabby bearded man with an inkwell around his neck. "Hello, Brother Nanin," he said. "How many petitions have you written today?"
Brother Nanin smiled shyly, showing small, decayed teeth. "There aren't many petitions written nowadays, noble don," he said. "Some people think that asking is pointless, while others expect that in the near future they'll be able to take without asking. ~ Arkady Strugatsky

You know what, BB? We've got dark spots on our souls. We have to live with that. War is not about doing what's right. War's about surviving."

Verner aka 'Jens'
in the novel 'The Informer' by Steen Langstrup ~ Steen Langstrup

In writing a little tragedy, 'The Gaol Gate,' I made the scenario in three lines, 'He is an informer; he is dead; he is hanged.' I wrote that play very quickly. ~ Lady Gregory

Bad guys turned informer. Good guys didn't - no matter when, no matter what. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

We were supposed to be heroes."
"There's no such thing as heroes."

Conversation between 'Alis K' and 'Borge'
The Informer by Steen Langstrup ~ Steen Langstrup

In Hitler's Third Reich it is estimated that there was one Gestapo agent for every 2000 citizens, and in Stalin's USSR there was one KGB agent for every 5830 people. In the GDR, there was one Stasi officer or informant for every sixty-three people. If part-time informers are included, some estimates have the ratio as high as one informer for every 6.5 citizens. ~ Anna Funder

What if the saboteurs come while he's standing there pissing on our truck?"
"Then he's in trouble."

Conversation between two Gestapo Officers
The Informer by Steen Langstrup ~ Steen Langstrup

I've been washing stairs my whole life. One day after the other. Since I was five years old. I've never complained. Shame on you. I'm embarrassed to have a son like you ... can't even look after his own bicycle. You just wait until your dad comes home. Then you'll be in trouble, I can tell you that much.
Poul-Erik's Mother
The Informer ~ Steen Langstrup

The truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. Little men are dissolved in it. If there is any gold, truth makes it shine more brightly ... Truth, even in the mouth of an informer, a spy, a briber, can become bigger than anybody who tries to destroy it. Truth survives. ~ Adela Rogers St. Johns

Meet me tonight, six o'clock sharp, at the gates of the municipal hospital. It is very important that you are precise. Not five minutes early, not five minutes late. In case I'm not there, you leave straight away. Got it?"

Ingrid aka 'Alis K'
The Informer ~ Steen Langstrup

What is the name of the woman on the telephone?"
"Alis K."
"Is that her real name?"
"No."

Conversation between 'BB' and his wife Grete
The Informer ~ Steen Langstrup

To save one Jewish child, ten Poles and two Jews had to risk death. To betray that same child and the family that hid him required only one informer or, worse still, one blackmailer. The risk of being caught by the SS was not prison, but death- death for the entire family. ~ Irena Sendler

I've seen you in action, BB. You get turned on by danger. You are seeking danger. The only reason you're with me is the risk of getting caught by your wife."

Ingrid aka 'Alis K'
The Informer by Steen Langstrup ~ Steen Langstrup

Human justice is very prolix, and yet at times quite mediocre; divine justice is more concise and needs no information from the prosecution, no legal papers, no interrogation of witnesses, but makes the guilty one his own informer and helps him with eternity's memory. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

On that road of the informer, it is always night. I cannot ever inform against anyone without feeling something die within me. I inform without pleasure, because it is necessary. ~ Whittaker Chambers

To put the point sharply: If an informer in the French underground who sent a friend to the torture chambers of the Gestapo was equally a victim, then there can be no right or wrong in life that I understand. ~ Albert Maltz

And you just said 'yes'?"
"We could use the money."
"Did you take money for saving the Jews?"

Conversation between 'BB' and his wife Grete
The Informer by Steen Langstrup ~ Steen Langstrup

Christ's blood in heaven, you ignorant, incompetent whey-faced nestlecock, do you think I am a hired spy, an informer? That I have a master, a paymaster, for God's love? You silly little man. ~ Patrick O'Brian

That pistol I gave you is a piece of crap. You can't hit anything with it, not at that distance."
Staring at her with tears in his blinking eyes, he says, "I did."
Conversation between Alis K and Willy
The Informer ~ Steen Langstrup

A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier ~ Gustave Flaubert

The diamond absolutes.
I am neither internee nor informer;
An inner emigre, grown long-haired
And thoughtful; a wood-kerne
Escaped from the massacre,
Taking protective colouring
From bole and bark, feeling
Every wind that blows;
Who, blowing up these sparks
For their meagre heat, have missed
The once-in-a-lifetime portent,
The comet's pulsing tose. ~ Seamus Heaney

You'll be very close to him when you shoot him. So shove the pistol in his face and pull the trigger instantly."

Ingrid aka 'Alis K'
The Informer ~ Steen Langstrup

Betrayal clearly has its own reward: the small deep human satisfaction of having one up on someone else. It is the psychology of the mistress, and this regime used it as fuel. ~ Anna Funder

I've just been wandering the streets at night. If I came by a German soldier out alone, I would follow him, shove the pistol to the back of his head, and shoot. Once, I even did two at the same time, but they were really drunk."


Poul-Erik aka 'Willy'
The Informer by Steen Langstrup ~ Steen Langstrup