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Quote by John Lanchester

“Home: it didn’t just seem as if home was a long way away, it actually felt as if the whole concept of home was strange, a thing you used to believe in, an ideology you’d once been passionate about but had now abandoned. Home: the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Somebody had said that. But once you had spent time on the Wall, you stop believing in the idea that anybody, ever, has no choice but to take you in. Nobody has to take you in. They can choose to, or not. (p. 54)”

Quote by John Lanchester

Work

The Wall

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Author

John Lanchester
John Lanchester

John Lanchester is a British journalist born on February 25, 1962. Known for his insightful observations of contemporary society and culture, his work spans across novels, criticism, and reporting. more

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“Not so long ago as a generation, there was no panting giant here, no heaving, grimy city; there was but a pleasant big town of neighborly people who had understanding of one another, being, on the whole, much of the same type. It was a leisurely and kindly place— “homelike,” it was called — and when the visitor had been taken through the State Asylum for the Insane and made to appreciate the view of the cemetery from a little hill, his host’s duty as Baedeker was done. The good burghers were given to jogging comfortably about in phaetons or in surreys for a family drive on Sunday. No one was very rich; few were very poor; the air was clean, and there was time to live. But there was a spirit abroad in the land, and it was strong here as elsewhere — a spirit that had moved in the depths of the American soil and labored there, sweating, till it stirred the surface, rove the mountains, and emerged, tangible and monstrous, the god of all good American hearts — Bigness. And that god wrought the panting giant.”

“«Devo andare a casa» disse il forestiero. E intanto il suo volto sorrideva. In un paese straniero, in un villaggio straniero, in una casa estranea, in una camera con mobili estranei. Vi collochiamo un paio di oggetti nostri. E questa è ora la nostra «casa», ogni giorno lo diventa di più, per mezzo dei pensieri e dei sentimenti che in essa viviamo e di cui la stanza si riempie. I pensieri si collegano con la stanza, con i suoi oggetti, con la pittura delle sue pareti, che al mattino, dopo il risveglio, ci avvezziamo a seguire con lo sguardo. Ora questa stanza è chiaramente delimitata dal resto del mondo. E' un posto di cui siamo responsabili, la difendiamo e ne vantiamo i pregi in confronto agli evidenti svantaggi di tutto il resto.”