When the corpses are cleared no new order will emerge. Power, society, relationships, will descend in all their confusion on a new generation. The old, who started this conflagration, will retreat, worn out, the survivors and the young will continue the dance.

We animals live life in all its glorious uncertainty. Why do politicians think they can control events?

I love literature, the English language and storytelling. I also have thirty horses and seventy foxhounds to feed.

Don't ask to live in tranquil times. Literature doesn't grow there.

If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

Language is decanted and shared. If only one person is left alive speaking a language - the case with some American Indian languages - the language is dead. Language takes two and their multiples.

There hasn't been a day in my life since I started Latin in ninth grade that I haven't benefited by the lives of the ancients.