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Quote by Lailah Gifty Akita

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Lailah Gifty Akita

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“In Darwin's writing people, as animals, may be unhappy, but they are doing what they cannot help do; in Freud's account people are equally driven, but their unhappiness shows they are divided against themselves. They always seem to want more than, or something other than, their mere existence and the reproduction of their genetic inheritance. As though our nature is to demand of nature more than it can give. There is a fantasy life that is a theatre of excess.”

“The assumption, which served Gandhi so well in dealing with individuals, that all human beings are more or less approachable and will respond to a generous gesture, needs to be seriously questioned. It is not necessarily true, for example, when you are dealing with lunatics. Then the question becomes: Who is sane? Was Hitler sane? And is it not possible for one whole culture to be insane by the standards of another?”

“He could smash it. He could sunder that hairy shell and scatter pieces of its crooked legs. He could be human in that last moment. He could exalt in his ability to destroy. But there were more of them crawling through the breach, and he was old, and Lain was older now, and he sought that other human quality, so scarce of late, and put his arms around her, holding the woman as tightly to him as he dared, the stick clattering to the floor.”