The talk about balance, nuclear balance, seems to me to be metaphysical and doesn't seem to be real at all.
E. P. ThompsonI don't care tuppence whether I'm forced into a leadership position or not. I'd much sooner not.
E. P. ThompsonThe readings of Soviet society are as many as the experts you speak to. In my view, it's a society that is overdue for measures of democratization and organization.
E. P. ThompsonI think that the U.S. does have this very much more open attitude, and I admire it very much and I think it's very important to the world. But the information and the discussion sometimes come too late, after the effective decision has been made.
E. P. ThompsonI do not see class as a 'structure', nor even as a 'category', but as something which in fact happens (and can be shown to have happened) in human relationships... the notion of class entails the notion of historical relationship. ...And class happens when some men, as a result of common experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs
E. P. Thompson