Bernard, section VIII
The Waves (1931)
Context: We have dined well. The fish, the veal cutlets, the wine have blunted the sharp tooth of egotism. Anxiety is at rest. The vainest of us, Louis perhaps, does not care what people think. Neville’s tortures are at rest. Let others prosper — that is what he thinks. Susan hears the breathing of all her children safe asleep. Sleep, sleep, she murmurs. Rhoda has rocked her ships to shore. Whether they have foundered, whether they have anchored, she cares no longer.
1827 journal entry reproduced in Emerson: The Mind on Fire (1995), p. 82
Trilogy, pt.3
Poetry, Miscellaneous poems
"Is There More," Scorpion (2018)
In response to a question in the House of Commons about the fishing industry losing money due to Brexit red tape https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2021-01-14/debates/329F59AC-D8A3-464D-AF4D-58C7EAA560C6/BusinessOfTheHouse#contribution-F5E677D7-58DE-4634-88A4-E97E2AA8F7E6 (14 January 2021)
2021
Speech in the U.S. Senate (2017)
Context: When a leader correctly identifies real hurt and insecurity in our country, and instead of addressing it, goes to look for someone to blame, there is perhaps nothing more devastating to a pluralistic society. Leadership knows that most often a good place to start in assigning blame is to look somewhat closer to home. Leadership knows where the buck stops.Humility helps, character counts. Leadership does not knowingly encourage or feed ugly or debased appetites in us. Leadership lives by the American creed, “E pluribus unum.” From many one. American leadership looks to the world and just as Lincoln did, sees the family of man. Humanity is not a zero sum game. When we have been at our most prosperous, we have been at our most principled, and when we do well, the rest of the world does well.
“If we do an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will be a blind and toothless nation.”
“If we didn't have quotas there would be overfishing and we would have no fish left.”
EU referendum: Leavers 'want to have cake and eat it', Elizabeth Truss claims https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36512743 BBC News (12 June 2016)
2016
“We have here other fish to fry.”
Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Fifth Book (1564), Chapter 12.
“We no longer grow the full beef of bohemia, It's all veal now.”
Intelligence Squared on 'Zero History' with Cory Doctorow https://soundcloud.com/intelligence2/william-gibson-on-zero-history (5th October 2010)
