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Journals and Letters
Sappho Durrell
‘I can’t carry anyone else’s fears; I have enough to contend with of my own.’
Field Burning
William Wharton
‘I thought after what had happened to us in the past twenty-four hours I’d never be scared to die again, but I am.’
Waterway
Geoffrey Wolff
‘You would not guess looking into my son's bedroom at home that Blackwing’s ice box would have been scrubbed, but it had been scrubbed.’
A Fish Out of Water
Mario Vargas Llosa
‘A democracy, I said, is driven by the electoral process, and in elections there are victories and defeats.’
The Press Officer
Alvaro Vargas Llosa
‘The threat of Fujimori was well hidden. There was nothing we could do: the die was cast.’
The Consultant
Mark Malloch Brown
‘Let the old politicians run against you. It will restore your political independence and make you unbeatable.’
The Unbearable Peace
John le Carré
‘It is a journalistic conceit to pretend you are unmoved by people. But I am not a journalist and I am not superior to this encounter.’
Switzerland Without an Army?
Max Frisch
‘Why should Switzerland of all places have no army? It costs billions and billions, but we can afford it.’
Václav Havel in Zürich
Friedrich Dürrenmatt
‘It so happens that the Swiss are a warlike people, even though no one has attacked us for over 200 years.’