“War was a get-together of the vain.”

— Colum McCann , book Let the Great World Spin

Let the Great World Spin (2009), Book One: Miró, Miró, on the Wall
Context: She recognized a new depth in him, a candor. The war was about vanity, he said. It was about old men who couldn't look in the mirror anymore and so they sent the young out to die. War was a get-together of the vain. They wanted it simple - hate your enemy, know nothing of him. It was, he claimed, the most un-American of wars, no idealism behind it, only about defeat.

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Colum McCann 71

Irish writer and journalist 1965

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