What has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has not been deterrence, in the sense of fear of specific weapons, so much as it's been memory. The memory of what happened at Hiroshima.John Hersey
Dr. Fujii, among others, has always trembled at showers, and weather reports from Kyushu get him down.John Hersey
Desolation is a file, and the endurance of darkness is preparation for great light. -St. John of the CrossQuotation in Hiroshima
They were the first ones who had ever noticed that the bomb had an odor — if, indeed, the bomb and not they themselves had that rather dreadful smell of ionization.John Hersey
Even members of families who had not been in Hiroshima on the day of the bombing came down with the strange, nameless disease.John Hersey
In a city of two hundred and forty-five thousand, nearly a hundred thousand people had been killed or doomed at one blow.John Hersey
Their faces were wholly burned, their eyesockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks. (The eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks—none could be located).John Hersey
These grotesque statuses were survivors of the blast, and despite appearances they could still move and speak.John Hersey
Little Boy and Fat Man made the physicists' theoretical nightmare of nuclear holocaust a reality.John Hersey
The keloid scars, thick, puckered flesh, which had grown over their burns contributed further to their horrifying unnaturalness.John Hersey