Shelomith’s hand falls from mine, and all I can think of is that somehow I must seek out the new king to see if he plans the building of new edifices… - James A. Michener

Ideas! Ideas! They are the fuel that keeps a brain functioning at a high level, and fortunately one does not have to invent one’s own; choice ideas from the past are easily available in any good library or university or on the job, if one looks. Ideas have been the joy of my life and in my ninth decade I am still striving to understand those that lie beyond my grasp while finding great comfort in those I do understand.” — Chapter VII, “Ideas”, page 259

Other things being roughly equal, that man lives most keenly who lives in closest harmony with nature. To be wholly alive a man must know storms, he must feel the ocean as his home or the air as his habitation. He must smell the things of earth, hear the sounds of living things and taste the rich abundance of the soil and sea.

This was rural Mexico, almost as impoverished and ignored as the worst of what I had seen when reporting on Haiti. It infuriated me to know that the Mexican political party that had run the nation for most of this century had called itself something like the People’s Revolutionary Party and had loudly preached social justice for all, winning election after election on that windy promise, but when installed, had proved itself to be a callous oligarchy. A small group of buddies had passed the presidency from one to another, each coming into office with modest means and leaving after six years with hundreds of millions, usually hidden in Swiss banks. The so-called revolutionaries stole the country blind, allowing or even forcing the peasants to sink deeper and deeper into abject poverty. Few nations had been ruled so cynically, which was why so many peasants wanted to escape to the good jobs, houses and food in the United States. I was not proud of what my country had accomplished during my lifetime.