Louis-Ferdinand Céline:

"Since we are nothing but packages of tepid, half-rotted viscera, we shall always have trouble with sentiment.”

W H Auden:

"But in my arms till break of day / Let the living creature lie. / Mortal, guilty, but to me/ The entirely beautiful."

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Reinventing Oneself or Being Cowards?

LIESL SCHILLINGER said (NYT Books Update April 4 2008):

“…And the fact that America is still a place where the rest of the world comes to reinvent itself — accepting with excitement and anxiety the necessity of leaving behind the constrictions and comforts of distant customs — is the underlying theme of Jhumpa Lahiri’s sensitive new collection of stories, “Unaccustomed Earth.””.

Another viewpoint is of Evelyn Waugh:

“Of course the Americans are cowards. They are almost all the descendants of wretches who deserted their legitimate monarchs for fear of military service.”

One may substitute "military service" with "tough life".


Artist: R K Laxman The Times of India