Oscar

“Freedom is not something you get as a present," said Pietro. "You can live in a dictatorship and be free-on one condition: that you fight the dictatorship. The man who thinks with his own mind and keeps it uncorrupted is free. The man who fights for what he thinks is right is free. But you can live in the most democratic country on earth, and if you're lazy, obtuse or servile within your-self, you're not free. Even without any violent coercion, you're a slave. You can't beg your freedom from some-one. You have to seize it - everyone as much as he can.”
― Ignazio Silone, BREAD & WINE

“I love myself and loathe myself more than other men. One of these excesses attracts women, but which?”
― John Updike, A Month of Sundays

“Politics is a luxury reserved for the well-fed.”
― Ignazio Silone, Bread and Wine

“...a boy with an unspeakable past was a man with an unendurable future. He was good to look at, good to dance with, probably good to sleep with: but he was no longer good for love.”
― James Baldwin, Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone