A Quote by Robert Harris

Social mores change all the time. In the mid-1970s, it would've been astonishing, say, to see two men holding hands in the streets. And the attitude to having a fling with a girl, or whatever, was quite different then.
It is not astonishing that there are many journalists who have become human failures and worthless men. Rather, it is astonishing that, despite all this, this very stratum includes such a great number of valuable and quite genuine men, a fact that outsiders would not so easily guess.
Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?
How sad now never to see men holding hands, while everywhere one looks they are holding guns.
Opera once was an important social instrument - especially in Italy. With Rossini and Verdi, people were listening to opera together and having the same catharsis with the same story, the same moral dilemmas. They were holding hands in the darkness. That has gone. Now perhaps they are holding hands watching television.
When I see gay people holding hands or kissing in the streets, I just don't think that's right.
TV taste is an aftertaste. Whatever gets on the tube is always a foregone conclusion, a fait accompli. That is, any new ideas or social changes have already been fought for in the real world of the streets, or in the bedroom or even the law courts long before they reach the screen. By the time you see it on prime time, it's usually all over and done with, whatever it was. Television by definition is not avant garde. It is often reactionary and always sentimental.
And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.
I quite fancy having a hover car, but I don't fancy everyone having one. Because I feel like I spend quite a lot of time stuck in traffic on the 405 but if everybody had one then they'd be scared and we'd crash, but if it was just me, then I think I would zoom home quite fast. I also quite fancy a phone attached to my hand but then I don't know if I fancy it being stuck to my body.
I would love to be a guys' girl, but they always end up falling in love with me, so I'm a girls' girl instead. I've tried having friendly relationships with men, but it ends up being impossible, and I've been around the block too many times not to see it coming.
I'm in my mid-40s now, and I came out in 11th grade, so I must have been 17. So that's quite a long time ago, and the temperature and the culture was different.
You may think it odd that there were three men to look after one tiny station, but the people who ran the railway knew that if you left two men together in a lonely place they would quarrel, but if you left three men, two of them could always grumble to each other about the third, and then they would be quite happy.
There are people we meet in life who miss being important to us by inches, days, or heartbeats. Another place or time or a different emotional frame of mind and we would willingly fall into their arms; gladly take up their challenge or invitation. But as it is, we encounter them when we are discontent or content and they are not. Whatever they are, we are not and vice versa. Two trains going in different directions that pass for a few powerful moments at full speed, blasting noise and wind but then they are gone. Whatever serious chemistry might have been possible if, isn’t.
A vast majority of the geographical area of the country would have been ignored during the campaign, and so the results would have been different. Who's to say Donald Trump would not have done better in California if he'd spent some time out there? And who's to say that Hillary Clinton would have done worse if she'd spent some time out there and actually had been seen by people in California like she was seen elsewhere as having questionable stamina.
It's quite nice to see that I didn't have to change who I was to reach two very different types of people.
Individual human beings are so subtly developed through the centuries that it is strictly impermissible to compare any two men who are not contemporaries-that is to say are taken from two quite different times.
As an American I must say I haven't been very encouraged by the way in which the people who run the government in the United States have been listening to those contrary voices. And so long as the power to run the world lies in the hands of people who are quite happy to see it get warmer, or fuel be used more, then would those people who oppose it are crying in the wilderness - that's the real problem.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!