The Man Who Is Master Of His

The Civilization Of One Epoch Becomes The Manure Of The Next.

Civilization Is An Active Deposit Which Is Formed By The Combustion Of The Present With The Past. Neither In Countries Without A Present Nor In Those Without A Past Is It To Be Encountered. Proust In Venice, Matisse's Birdcages Overlooking The Flower Market At Nice, Gide On The Seventeenth-century Quais Of Toulon, Lorca In Granada, Picasso By Saint-germain-des-prés: There Lies Civilization And For Me It Can Exist Only Under Those Liberal Regimes In Which The Present Is Alive And Therefore Capable Of Assimilating The Past.

As Repressed Sadists Are Supposed To Become Policemen Or Butchers So Those With An Irrational Fear Of Life Become Publishers.

When I Write After Dark The Shades Of Evening Scatter Their Purple Through My Prose.

Whom The Gods Wish To Destroy They First Call Promising.