Were We To Choose Our Leaders On

In The West You Have Every Opportunity For Civilization To Triumph.

The Surest Defense Against Evil Is Extreme Individualism, Originality Of Thinking, Whimsicality, Even - If You Will - Eccentricity. That Is, Something That Can't Be Feigned, Faked, Imitated; Something Even A Seasoned Imposter Couldn't Be Happy With.

If A Poet Has Any Obligation Toward Society, It Is To Write Well. Being In The Minority, He Has No Other Choice. Failing This Duty, He Sinks Into Oblivion. Society, On The Other Hand, Has No Obligation Toward The Poet. A Majority By Definition, Society Thinks Of Itself As Having Other Options Than Reading Verses, No Matter How Well Written. Its Failure To Do So Results In Its Sinking To That Level Of Locution At Which Society Falls Easy Prey To A Demagogue Or A Tyrant. This Is Society's Own Equivalent Of Oblivion.

Love Itself Is The Most Elitist Of Passions. It Acquires Its Stereoscopic Substance And Perspective Only In The Context Of Culture, For It Takes Up More Place In The Mind Than It Does In Bed. Outside Of That Setting It Falls Flat Into One-dimensional Fiction.

When Thomas Mann Arrived In California From Germany, They Asked Him About German Literature. And He Said, 'german Literature Is Where I Am.' It's Really A Bit Grand, But If A German Can Afford It, I Can Afford It.