After ‘Lindbergh,’ my publisher asked whom I wanted to write about next. I said, ‘There’s one idea I’ve been carrying in my hip pocket for 35 years. It’s Woodrow Wilson.’
Years
One hundred and ten years from now no one who is here now will be alive.
Our constancy, same might call it our madness, was necessary to wear down the oppressive forces of the old democracy which, in Spain, was a hundred years behind the times.
My academic identity is that of a folklorist, and for many years I have taught only folklore courses.
To the citizens of Israel, I say: we have passed difficult years, faced the most painful experiences and overcame them. The future lies before us. We are required to take difficult and controversial steps, but we must not miss the opportunity to try to achieve what we have wished for, for so many years: security, tranquillity and peace.
The doctor said, ‘He can’t last a week.’ And I did. And they said, ‘There’s no way this kid’s going to last a month.’ And I did. And so they said, ‘Two years. He’s not going to make it.’ Two years. ‘Five years. He can’t do that.’ I lived to be five years. ‘He’s never going to hit double digits.’ And here I am, a new teenager.
Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.
What then is tragedy? In the Elizabethan period it was assumed that a play ending in death was a tragedy, but in recent years we have come to understand that to live on is sometimes far more tragic than death.
Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh.
I wrote poems in my corner of the Brooks Street station. I sent them to two editors who rejected them right off. I read those letters of rejection years later and I agreed with those editors.