One thing, it would seem, is certain. The days of treating Negroes lik — John Gunther

"The threat of Italian naval power in the Mediterranean, the dangerous entrenchment given Germany near Gibraltar as a result of the Spanish civil war, the riotous instalibility in Palestine, above all the Munich "peace" in September, 1938, and its consequences, gravely weakened British prestige, British power too, all over the world, as we well know. As a friend of mine said: "The lion tried to show his teeth, and it was all bridgework." In fact some teeth were still there. Mr. Chamberlain preferred to smile instead of biting- but he may have to bite before too long."

"Mr. Gandhi, who is an incredible combination of Jesus Christ, Tammany Hall, and your father, is the greatest Indian since Buddha. Like Buddha, he will be worshiped as a god when he dies. Indeed, he is literally worshiped by thousands of his people. I have seen peasants kiss the sand his feet have trod. No more difficult or enigmatic character can easily be conceived. He is a slippery fellow. I mean no disrespect. But consider some of the contradictions, some of the puzzling points of contrast in his career and character. This man who is at once a saint and a politician, a prophet and a superb opportunist, defies ordinary categories. For instance, his great contribution to India was the theory and practice of non-violence or civil disobedience. But at the very time that non-violence was the deepest thing he believed in, he was supporting Britain in the World War. The concept of non-violence is a perfect example of Gandhis familiar usage of moral weapons to achieve practical results, of his combination of spiritual and temporal powers. India, an unarmed state, could make a revolution only by non-violent means. Non-violence was a spiritual concept, but it made revolution practicable."

"Finally, Pan-Asia is an illusion. One can speak of Europe- even now- as a whole. But not Asia. One can speak of such a concept- at least till recently- as a "European mind." I do not think one would readily use such a phrase as an "Asiatic mind." A war in Spain can send tremors throughout Europe as far as the Baltic and beyond; a war in China is still only of remote, vestigal interest to the Asia of the Near East. Asia is not interlocked, intertwined, as Europe is, though it is interlocked with Europe. The Japanese are on the march- even in Tehran I saw a brand of Japanese canned goods known as Geisha sardines- but Asia is a long distance around. It is too big to be a unit. It is three continents in one."

"More than anywhere else in this book, the author must now steer between Scylla and Charybdis, between saying too much and too little. How can we talk about the Statue of Liberty without seeming ridiculously supererogatory? But how can we omit Brooklyn Bridge and still give a fair, comprehensive picture? One must either take the space to mention something that everybody knows everything about, or else risk omission of things that everybody will think ought to be included. Park Avenue in summer near Grand Central, a thin quivering asphalt shelf, and the asphalt soft, a thin quivering layer of street separating the automobiles above from the trains below; avenues as homespun with small exquisite shops as Madison and streets as magnificent as 57th; the fat black automobiles doubleparked on Fifth Avenue on sleety afternoons; kibitzers watching strenuously to see if the man running will really catch the bus; bridges soaring and slim as needles like the George Washington; the incomparable moment at dusk when the edges of tall buildings melt invisibly into the sky, so that nothing of them can be seen except the lighted windows; the way the pace of everything accelerates near Christmas; how the avenues will be cleared of snow and actually dry a day after a six-inch fall, while the side streets are banked solid with sticky drifts; how the noon sun makes luminous spots on the rounded tops of automobiles, crowded together on the slope of Park Avenue so that they look like seashells; the shop that delivers chocolates by horse- all this is too familiar to mention."

"It is a proud boast of New York that, what with its enormous pools of foreign-born, any article or object known in the world may be found there. You can buy anything from Malabar spices to stamps from Mauritius to Shakespeare folios. A stall on Seventh Avenue sells about a hundred different varieties of razor blades. Also it is incomparably the greatest manufacturing town on earth; in an average year it produces goods valued at more than four billion dollars."

"This book is for Johnny, who suggested it"