The Human Factor

Hate is an automatic response to fear, for fear humiliates.

He opened the book at random, or so he believed, but a book is like a sandy path which keeps the indent of footsteps.

In a crisis perhaps it is old clichés one clings to, like a child to a parent.

One can't reason away regret-it's a bit like falling in love, falling into regret.

I don't think Communism will work--in the long run--any better than Christianity has done, and I'm not the Crusader type. Capitalism or Communism? Perhaps God is a Capitalist. I want to be on the side most likely to win during my lifetime. Don't look shocked, John. You think I'm a cynic, but I just don't want to waste a lot of time. The side that wins will be able to build the better hospitals, and give more to cancer research--when all this atomic nonsense is abandoned. In the meantime I enjoy the game we're all playing. Enjoy. Only enjoy. I don't pretend to be an enthusiast for God or Marx. Beware of people who believe. They aren't reliable players. All the same one grows to like a good player on the other side of the board--it increases the fun.

Why are some of us, he wondered, unable to love success or power or great beauty? Because we feel unworthy of them, because we feel more at home with failure? He didn't believe that was the reason. Perhaps one wanted the right balance, just as Christ had, the legendary figure whom he would have liked to believe in. 'Come unto me all ye that travail are and heavy laden.' Young as the girl was at that August picnic she was heavily laden with her timidity and shame. Perhaps he had merely wanted her to feel that she was loved by someone and so he began to love her himself. It wasn't pity, any more than it had been pity when he fell in love with Sarah pregnant by another man. He was there to right the balance. That was all.

He had opened the book at random several times, seeking a sortes Virgilianae, before he chose the sentences on which his code was to be based. 'You say: I am not free. But I have lifted my hand and let it fall.' It was as if in choosing that passage, he were transmitting a signal of defiance to both the services. The last word of the message, when it was decoded by Boris or another, would read 'goodbye.

Then he allowed himself to strike, like his childhood hero Allan Quatermain, off on that long slow underground stream which bore him on toward the interior of the dark continent where he hoped that he might find a permanent home, in a city where he could be accepted as a citizen, as a citizen without any pledge of faith, not the City of God or Marx, but the city called Peace of Mind.

a book is like a sandy path which keeps the indent of footprints.

A man in love walks through the world like an anarchist, carrying a time bomb.

You'd do much better to employ a man who doesn't hate, Boris. Hate's liable to make mistakes. It is as dangerous as love. I'm doubly dangerous, Boris, because I love too. Love's a fault in both our services.

Death made Davis important. Death gave Davis a kind of stature. The dead are perhaps wiser than we are

it was easier to talk of hard things in an easy chair -- it was difficult, he had always found, to get angry in an easy chair.

She put her hand in his: it was an act more intimate than a kiss -- one can kiss a stranger.

He didn't suffer from hunger - he suffered only from a breach in his routine. He was uneasy.

You say, I am not free. But I have lifted my head and let it fall." It was as if, in choosing that passage, he were transmitting a signal of defiance to both the services. The last word of the message, when it was decoded by Boris or another, would read "goodbye".

Perhaps because I'm feeling happier. Don't ask me why, Sarah. Happiness goes when you speak of it. (164)

What about a Luger ? I suppose you had a Luger. Or an explosive fountain pen ?" "No. We've never been very James Bond minded here. I wasn't allowed to carry a gun, and my only car was a secondhand Morris Minor.

Someone who's prejudiced is an idealist, and one without prejudice has no ideals