Quote of the Day

Friedell believed that an artist of his type needed “a magnetic field” in which to operate. He was well aware that he was surrounded by the kind of people whose only ambition was to cut off the electricity. They were Nazis, and he was a Jew. On the day of the Anschluβ in 1938, Friedell saw the storm troopers marching down the street, on their way to the building in which he had his apartment full of books. He was only a few floors up but it was high enough to do the job. On his way out of the window he called a warning, in case his falling body hit an innocent passer-by.

Clive James, Cultural Amnesia