"I was in the enormous and almost deserted square in front of the Great People's Study House—all open spaces in Pyongyang remain deserted unless filled with parades of hundreds of thousands of human automata—when a young Korean slid surreptitiously up to me and asked, "Do you speak English?" An electric moment: for in North Korea, unsupervised contact between a Korean and a foreigner is utterly unthinkable, as unthinkable as shouting, "Down with Big Brother!" "Yes," I replied. "I am a student at the Foreign Languages Institute. Reading Dickens and Shakespeare is the greatest, the only pleasure of my life." It was the most searing communication I have ever received in my life. We parted immediately afterward and of course will never meet again. For him, Dickens and Shakespeare (which the regime permitted him to read with quite other ends in view) guaranteed the possibility not just of freedom but of truly human life itself."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
The Dystopian Imagination (Autumn 2001).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anthony_Daniels_(psychiatrist)
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist)
98 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist) →
Related Quotes
"Where fashion in clothes, bodily adornment, and music are concerned, it is the underclass that increasingly sets the …"
"Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusio…"
"Childhood in large parts of modern Britain, at any rate, has been replaced by premature adulthood, or rather adolesce…"
"Optimism is the parent of despair, while pessimism allows the mind to accustom itself to the inevitable disappointmen…"
"Multiculturalism as an official doctrine, complete with enforcing bureaucracies, undermines the rule of law because i…"
"Compassionate fellow-feeling ... can soon become self-indulgent and lead to spiritual pride. It imparts an inner glow…"
"Nothing is easier - or more gratifying - than to apologise for what your ancestors, enemies or political opponents ha…"
"Humor, fearlessness, seriousness, and honesty: the qualities that are hated with an equal hatred by all the smelly li…"
"When the Berlin Wall was dismantled I, like many other naive observers, supposed that the age of ideology was at an e…"
"When every benefit received is a right, there is no place for good manners, let alone for gratitude."