America: So What?
May. 3rd, 2005 08:47 amFinished Mother Night. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. will go down in my memory as one of the greatest writers this century has ever known.
"'There are plenty of good reasons for fighting,' I said, 'but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almight Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive.
'It's that part of an imbecile,' I said, 'that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly.'"
-Howard W. Campbell, Jr., Mother Night
Next up, George Eliot and Middlemarch.
"'There are plenty of good reasons for fighting,' I said, 'but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almight Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive.
'It's that part of an imbecile,' I said, 'that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly.'"
-Howard W. Campbell, Jr., Mother Night
Next up, George Eliot and Middlemarch.