Βιβλία σαν το «Άθραυστος»

Early on a difficult climb, especially a difficult solo climb, you constantly feel the abyss pulling at your back. To resist takes a tremendous conscious effort; you don’t dare let your guard down for an instant. The siren song of the void puts you on edge; it makes your movements tentative, clumsy, herky-jerky. But as the climb goes on, you grow accustomed to the exposure, you get used to rubbing shoulders with doom, you come to believe in the reliability of your hands and feet and head. You learn to trust your self-control. By and by your attention becomes so intensely focused that you no longer notice the raw knuckles, the cramping thighs, the strain of maintaining nonstop concentration. A trancelike state settles over your efforts; the climb becomes a clear-eyed dream. Hours slide by like minutes.

He says, you have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else but you can’t make up an empty mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.

With all but a few lights extinguished and all shades pulled and curtains drawn, the great liner slid forward through the sea, at times in fog, at times under a lacework of stars. But even in darkness, in moonlight and mist, the ship stood out. At one o’clock in the morning, Friday, May 7, the officers of a New York–bound vessel spotted the Lusitania and recognized it immediately as it passed some two miles off. “You could see the shape of the four funnels,” said the captain, Thomas M. Taylor; “she was the only ship with four funnels.”

Ο αναγνώστης ενδέχεται να µε ρωτήσει γιατί δεν αποπειράθηκα να ξεφύγω απ’ όσα µε περίµεναν, αφότου ο Χίτλερ κατέλαβε την Αυστρία. Επιτρέψτε µου να απαντήσω αναθυµούµενος την ακόλουθη ιστορία. Λίγο πριν εισέλθουν στον ∆εύτερο Παγκόσµιο Πόλεµο οι Ηνωµένες Πολιτείες, είχα µια πρόσκληση να πάω στο Αµερικανικό Προξενείο στη Βιέννη να παραλάβω τη µεταναστευτική βίζα µου. Οι γηραιοί γονείς µου ήσαν πολύ χαρού µενοι, καθώς προσδοκούσαν ότι θα µου επιτρεπόταν σύντοµα να φύγω από την Αυστρία. Ωστόσο, ξαφνικά δίστασα. Με κατέκλυσε το ερώτηµα: µπορούσα πράγµατι να αφήσω τους γονείς µου µόνους τους να αντιµετωπίσουν τη µοίρα τους, να σταλούν, αργά ή γρήγορα, σ’ ένα στρατόπεδο συγκέντρωσης, ή ακόµη και σ’ ένα λεγόµενο στρατόπεδο εξόντωσης; Πού βρισκόταν η ευθύνη µου; Θα έπρεπε να αναθρέψω το πνευµατικό µου τέκνο, τη λογοθεραπεία, µεταναστεύοντας σε γόνιµο έδαφος όπου θα µπορούσα να γράψω τα βιβλία µου;

As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760–1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.

I reminded the men in the audience that being a father meant more than fathering a child; that even those of us who were physically present in the home are often emotionally absent; that precisely because many of us didn’t have fathers in the house we have to redouble our efforts to break the cycle; and that if we want to pass on high expectations to our children, we have to have higher expectations for ourselves.