"Were we to choose our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth. I believe ... that for someone who has read a lot of Dickens to shoot his like in the name of an idea is harder than for someone who has read no Dickens."
"What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness."
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Source: Raw Material by Derek Mahon - review by Aingeal Clare, www.theguardian.com. February 3, 2012.
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