National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.
"Do you wish to speak in Provencal, French, or Latin? They are all I can manage, I'm afraid." "Any will do," the rabbi replied in Provencal. "Splendid. Latin it is," said Pope Clement."
"The only time I've ever learned anything from a review was when wrote a piece in the Guardian about my second novel, . He said that, together with the previous novel, it represented a diptych about the aftermath of Irish independence. I simply hadn't known that - and I loved the grandeur of the word "diptych". I went around quite snooty for a few days, thinking: "I wrote a diptych."