We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.

The English know how to make the best of things. Their so-called muddling through is simply skill at dealing with the inevitable.

The blurring of fantasy and reality is something that the Japanese herald in their life, in their day-to-day commercialism.

The Pashtun tribes are always engaged in private or public war. Every man is a warrior, a politician and a theologian. Every large house is a real feudal fortress....Every family cultivates its vendetta; every clan, its feud....Nothing is ever forgotten and very few debts are left unpaid.

No two cities have counted more with mankind than Athens and Jerusalem. Their messages in religion, philosophy, and art have been the main guiding lights of modern faith and culture.

The maxim of the British people is 'business as usual.'