Island of the World: A Novel by Michael D. O'Brien
Culture is the last refuge, the sanctuary, the human place in the midst of the surrounding dehumanization. Through the arts man is able to know himself, even if only on the intuitive level. He senses his own worth, even when he cannot articulate it.' 'Can a poem or a song defeat a tyrant?' Defeat a killer, defeat atrocities, defeat the bottom falling out of the universe when you least expect it? 'Yes. Yes, it can, given enough time. When a work of art is both beautiful and true, man's freedom is strengthened by it'both his interior need for freedom and his capacity to seek a rational understanding of it.' 'You hope for a lot.' 'Yes, I hope for it. And if I didn't, I would die of despair.' 'You are a person of extremes', Josip says, not unkindly. 'Am I? I suppose so. But which is more extreme, a man who desires to speak the truth in a season of lies or a tyrant who creates the lies that engulf an entire people?' Josip nods in agreement.
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