John Le
John Le
men identity persons
The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal.
war army technology
It was man who ended the Cold War in case you didn't notice. It wasn't weaponry, or technology, or armies or campaigns. It was just man. Not even Western man either, as it happened, but our sworn enemy in the East, who went into the streets, faced the bullets and the batons and said: we've had enough. It was their emperor, not ours, who had the nerve to mount the rostrum and declare he had no clothes. And the ideologies trailed after these impossible events like condemned prisoners, as ideologies do when they've had their day.
childhood monsters detachment
The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous
writing cat stories
The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.
unhappy-childhood people literature
People who've had very unhappy childhoods are pretty good at inventing themselves. If nobody invents you for yourself, nothing is left but to invent yourself for others.
should-have eight solitude
It struck him as a bit unfair that, at the age of eight, he should have manifested the same sense of solitude that haunted him at forty-three.
status-quo one-thing
There's one thing worse than change and that's the status quo.
sacrifice men soul
A good man knows when to sacrifice himself, a bad man survives but loses his soul.
thinking people creative
I think that all writers feel alienated. ... I know that I do. ... I still feel, as I think most creative people do, absolutely isolated.
who-we-are
Let's all pretend to be someone else, and then perhaps we'll find out who we are.
cat writing watches
A good writer can watch a cat pad across the street and know what it is to be pounced upon by a Bengal tiger.
love betrayal betrayed
Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love.
spy literature population
A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.
clever thinking tragedy
I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.