Babel

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways – I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.

PLATO, Apology

Why’s he the only one with a table?’ Ramy asked. ‘Why are the Brahmins on the floor?’

‘Well, I suppose Hindus preferred it that way,’ said Billings. ‘They like sitting cross-legged, you see, for they find it more comfortable.’

‘Very illuminating,’ said Ramy. ‘I never knew.’

To Bennett,

who is all the light and laughter in the world

larger picture, that those parcels must have come from the professor.

Miss Betty, and who had lived with his household for as long as he could remember. He never quite understood what she was doing there – his family was certainly not wealthy enough to employ any servants, especially not a foreigner

Victory is not assured. Victory may be in the portents, but it must be urged there by violence, by suffering, by martyrs, by blood. Victory is wrought by ingenuity, persistence, and sacrifice. Victory is a game of inches, of historical contingencies where everything goes right because they have made it go right.

Death is nature’s greatest good. Death is a better state. Death frees the immortal soul. Death is transcendence. Death is an act of bravery, a glorious act of defiance.

How did one make peace with one’s own death?

What an anchor she was, he thought, an anchor he did not deserve. She was his rock, his light, the sole presence that had kept him going. And he wished, he wished, that was enough for him to hold on to.

Violence was the only thing that brought the colonizer to the table; violence was the only option.