Patrick McGuinness

“Leo had once joked about writing an allegorical sketch where Parody packed its bags, shut up shop and put a sign on the door which read: “Closed. Any inquiries please contact the Real”.”

“In diplomacy there are two kinds of problems: small ones and large ones. The small ones will go away by themselves and the large ones you will not be able to do anything about. The biggest challenges in your career will come from the temptation to act. The test of your mettle will be how nobly you surmount it.”

“The waiter came over to ask if all is delicious. As we have not yet ordered, it is certainly the perfect time to enquire.”

“To be compromised you need to have a stake in things, you need to have something to lose and something to gain. You have to be risking yourself, not all the time, but enough of the time to be weighing things up, principle over self-preservation, the gains, the losses.”

“Life in a police state magnifies the small mercies that it leaves alone until they become disproportionate to their significance; at the same time it banalises the worst travesties into mere routine.”