“It was not generally realized that what children mostly wanted was to be left alone.”

— Ian McEwan , book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Ian McEwan 80

British author 1948

Patrick Süskind (1949) German writer and screenwriter

Source: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“The Ottoman Empire was an ugly affair, but they had the right idea. The rulers in Turkey were fortunately so corrupt that they left people alone pretty much -- were mostly interested in robbing them -- and they left them alone to run their own affairs, and their own regions and their own communities with a lot of local self determination.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Talk titled "Prospects for Peace in the Middle East" at the University of Toledo, Ohio, March 4, 2001 http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20010304.htm.
Quotes 2000s, 2001

“As soon as I was out in the street, I realized I didn't want to be alone after all, I realized I didn't want to be anything at all.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

“That is the problem with governments these days. They want to do things all the time; they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what people want. People want to be left alone to look after their cattle.”

Alexander McCall Smith The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Source: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

“The entire village left the next day in about thirty canoes, leaving us alone with the women and children in the abandoned houses.”

Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009) French anthropologist and ethnologist

Le village entier partit le lendemain dans une trentaine de pirogues, nous laissant seuls avec les femmes et les enfants dans les maisons abandonnées.
Notes in an early work, often cited as an extreme example of androcentrism, even among leading anthropologists, " Contribution à l'étude de l'organisation sociale des Indiens Bororo http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/jsa_0037-9174_1936_num_28_2_1942?_Prescripts_Search_tabs1=standard&" (1936) p. 283