E.M. Cioran, from “The Temptation to Exist”. Born in Transylvania in 1911, the misanthropic philosopher was a youthful supporter of 1930s political strongmen. "In Romania," he wrote to a friend, "only terror, brutality, and an infinite anxiety could still lead to some change." He moved to France in 1937, thereafter using Romanian primarily for cursing; he found French inadequate for this purpose. "Sometimes I ask myself if it really was me who wrote these ravings they quote," he wrote in 1973.
He died in Paris in 1995

Với liều lượng bình thường, sự sợ hãi, không thể thiếu được trong hành động, trong ý nghĩ, bởi là vì nó chích 1 phát vào cảm quan, vào tâm trí của chúng ta. Nhưng 1 khi chơi 1 liều cực nặng, là bỏ mẹ!
Khi đó sợ hãi biến thành 1 nguyên lý gây hại, hay nói thẳng ra ở đây, nó biến thành độc ác, tàn nhẫn. Một người run rẩy những giấc mơ làm cho người khác run rẩy, một người sống trong khiếp sợ, người đó chấm dứt những ngày của hắn ta trong độc ác…
Note: GCC tự hỏi, cái sự độc ác, tàn nhẫn, cái gì gì, “vô cảm” của người dân xứ Mít, như báo chí trong nước hàng ngày cho thấy, liệu có phải là do sống thường trực trong khủng bố, trong ghê rợn, với cái thứ luật rừng của lũ Vẹm?

There is nothing strange about fear: no matter in what guise it presents itself it is something with which we are all so familiar that when a man appears who is without it we are at once enslaved by him.
-Henry Miller, 1938 

"You should beware of two things about a woman: her hair and her tears."
        God knows why my grandfather told my father that. 
        He muttered prayers to himself as he fingered three of his worry beads, then continued, "Her hair will chain you and her tears will drown you!"

        Another three beads, another three prayers, and then: "That's why it's imperative they cover up their hair and their faces!"
        He said this on the day my father decided to take a second wife. My mother wept-and then her face once again assumed its mask of fear.
My grandmother used to say that my mother was born with a terrified face, and it was the face I was used to. Whenever someone met her for the first time, they'd assume she was scared of them.
I couldn't understand what it was exactly that made her appear so frightened. Was it because her face looked so drawn and thin? Or because of the dark circles under her eyes? Or because her mouth turned down at the corners? If my mother ever smiled, she would smile between the two deep lines cut into her face like the brackets around a sentence; if she ever cried, she would cry between brackets. In fact, she lived her whole life between brackets ...
        But one day the brackets vanished. The terrified mask dropped from her face. And then a few months later, my father took a second wife. No one asked why, because even if some one had dared to ask, my father would never have answered.
        My father had no interest whatsoever why my mother always looked so frightened. He couldn't have, otherwise how could he have lived alongside a woman who always looked terrified? Truth is, my father never loved my mother at all, he just fucked her. He'd get on top of her in the dark, close his eyes ... and get on with it.
        But what happened the day the fear vanished from my mother's face to make my father think about taking another wife? Probably my father needed a woman to be scared of him in order to get turned on. And the day my mother stopped being terrified of having sex, my father’s desire vanished. So he had to get himself another wife. A younger wife who'd still scared of sex.
And maybe the day my mother lost her fear having sex was the first time she ever enjoy it. The first and last time.

But it wasn't long before she put her frightened mask back on. This time not because she was scared of having sex, but because she was terrified he'd leave her.

Tonight, lonelier than ever, my brave mother has placed her frightened face behind the street door while she waits for me to come home.
Her worn-out hands, free at night to be raised to beg God's mercy, recite the prayer for safe return.

Atiq Rahimi, from A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear. In 2013 the Afghan-born writer an filmmaker - who in 1984 fled to France to escape the Soviet coup in his home country - gave an address in Edinburgh about whether literature should be political. ''I remember that when Soviets were in Afghanistan, a brilliant saying from Poland was used by intellectuals, " said Rahimi. ''It went: 'If you want to survive, don't think. If you think, don't talk. If you talk, don't write. If you write, don't sign it. If you sign it don't be surprised!"