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I don't see why the young in Prague or Budapest or Warsaw shouldn't be allowed to go to hell in a handcart if they want to. They do it everywhere else and they have great fun doing so.

 

John Banville

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I wanted Warsaw to be great. Both me and my colleagues were making plans of a great Warsaw of the future. And Warsaw is great. It happened sooner than we thought. And although where we wanted parks are baricades, although our libraries are burning, although the hospitals are burning the city of Warsaw, defending the honour of Poland, is today at the highest point of its greatness.

 

Stefan Starzynski

 

I know that this is a cliché by now and I suppose that Prague people are sick and tired of hearing Prague referred to as ‘Magic Prague’, but, you know, I may complain about the tourists, but I am a tourist after all. I'd rather not be, but I am.

 

John Banville

 

Mr. Chairman, you have invited me to speak on the subject of Britain and Europe. Perhaps I should congratulate you on your courage. If you believe some of the things said and written about my views on Europe, it must seem rather like inviting Genghis Khan to speak on the virtues of peaceful coexistence! ...The European Community is one manifestation of that European identity, but it is not the only one. We must never forget that east of the Iron Curtain, peoples who once enjoyed a full share of European culture, freedom and identity have been cut off from their roots. We shall always look on Warsaw, Prague and Budapest as great European cities...To try to suppress nationhood and concentrate power at the centre of a European conglomerate would be highly damaging and would jeopardise the objectives we seek to achieve. Europe will be stronger precisely because it has France as France, Spain as Spain, Britain as Britain, each with its own customs, traditions and identity. It would be folly to try to fit them into some sort of identikit European personality...it is ironic that just when those countries such as the Soviet Union, which have tried to run everything from the centre, are learning that success depends on dispersing power and decisions away from the centre, there are some in the Community who seem to want to move in the opposite direction. We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.

 

Margaret Thatcher

 

Young Ones.
Darling we're the Young Ones.
Young Ones shouldn't be afraid
To live, love, there's a song to be sung,
Cause we may not
Be the Young Ones
very long.

 

Sid Tepper

 

Warsaw is burning. Warsaw is fighting its enemy in this last mortal battle. All the promises let us down, the help did not arrive. Lack of food and lack of potable water paralises and weakens. Yet we fight: with the enemy, with the fire and with the epidemics. Everyone is fighting. Whole city is tied in this mortal struggle. You send us letters of compliments and best wishes from London and Paris. We don't want wishes any more, nor we await your help. It's too late for help. Before it arrives there will be only rubble here, a corpses-covered, levelled terrain. What we await is revenge. We expect that you will start fighting one day, just like Warsaw is.

 

Stefan Starzynski