Hans Fallada

For twelve years he had been bullied and persecuted by the Nazis : they had interrogated him, arrested him, banned his books some of the time, allowed them at other times, spied on his family life ; in short ; they had made his life a misery. But as a result of all these hurts, great and small, inflicted upon him, and as a result of all the vile, disgusting, and horrendous things he had seen and heard in thiose twelve years, and read between the lines of all the vainglorious news buttetins ans swaggering editorial, a lasting feeling had grown up within him : an utter hatred of these peiople who had destroyed the German nation, a hatred so profound that he could no longer stomach the colour brown, or indeed any mention of the very word. If he saw anything brown around him, he had to paint it over, paint it out : it was an obsession with him.