'The war was almost over. On the other side of the plain, the enemy artillery base lay silent; no reconnaissance plane had yet appeared on the horizon.'
The sun had not yet risen, but above the grassy plain, the mist was already starting to drift away. The village of Diem–a cluster of shacks along the highway–was emerging from the night.
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‘Feelings can be very obscure but numbers never lie.’
Kevin Brazil on metrics, obsession and fitness.
‘An intense workout is an ecstasy of punishment packaged as self-improvement.’
Mary Wellesley on exercise, ritual and Barry’s Bootcamp.
‘I was not good at sports because I would not do sports because I did not have the body for sports because I would not do sports.’
Saba Sams on girlhood, embodiment and avoiding sports.
‘Following United rarely brings me any great joy and most often it depresses me. If I could disengage, I would.’
Jonny Thakkar on Manchester United.
‘I deployed my body against an opponent like a blunt and effective instrument.’
John Patrick McHugh on playing Gaelic football.
‘I wanted to see a communist victory, which I presumed to be inevitable. I wanted to see the fall of a city.’
‘When I look at a word, I can see the thing inside it. The ear inside heart.’
‘I thought of her more as a sort of parental figure in the beginning. There was scolding.’
Renata Adler on her friendship with Hannah Arendt.
