The One Way To Get

Civilization Is An Active Deposit Which Is Formed By The Combustion Of The Present With The Past. Neither In Countries Without A Present Nor In Those Without A Past Is It To Be Encountered. Proust In Venice, Matisse's Birdcages Overlooking The Flower Market At Nice, Gide On The Seventeenth-century Quais Of Toulon, Lorca In Granada, Picasso By Saint-germain-des-prés: There Lies Civilization And For Me It Can Exist Only Under Those Liberal Regimes In Which The Present Is Alive And Therefore Capable Of Assimilating The Past.

Slums May Well Be Breeding Grounds Of Crime, But Middle Class Suburbs Are Incubators Of Apathy And Delirium.

The True Work Of Art Is The One Which The Seventh Wave Of Genius Throws Up The Beach Where The Undertow Of Time Cannot Drag It Back.

Those Of Us Who Were Brought Up As Christians And Have Lost Our Faith Have Retained The Sense Of Sin Without The Saving Belief In Redemption. This Poisons Our Thought And So Paralyses Us In Action.

Melancholy And Remorse Form The Deep Leaden Keel Which Enables Us To Sail Into The Wind Of Reality; We Run Aground Sooner Than The Flat-bottomed Pleasure-lovers But We Venture Out In Weather That Would Sink Them And We Choose Our Direction.