Ian McDonald

Many people go to the ends of the earth to find beauty.

If you think about it carefully it seems impossible to reconcile two things which most people would very much like to believe – one, that they enjoy free will and in some ultimate sense are masters of their fates, and, two, that the God of all creation is omnipotent and has a master plan for us all which is beneficial.

Who can doubt that the West Indian nation in relation to its tiny population and insignificant economic and military weight has been disproportionately blessed by the fruits of our extraordinary range of creative men and women.

What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles.

It is necessary to repeat again and again that in the background of all our lives there exists a fundamental and dominating lie.

I remember a very long time ago, in the era of Prime Minister—not even then President—L.F.S.

Intermittently, and especially during memorable times up the immense and soul-redeeming Essequibo, I like to read Shelley – as we all should do from time to time since he is pre-eminently the poet of hope.

The great unabridged Oxford English Dictionary contains half a million words.

By what values should we strive to live in order to achieve a community in which differences are accommodated, a community where there is diversity of discourse but a recognition of the common good regardless of politics, religion, race and personal beliefs?

If you can, every now and then it is good to escape the reality which you have settled into.

I never give up on New Year resolutions. Year after year I make them and, usually quite quickly, I break them.

Tradition gathers around Christmas. Pageants and homecomings and longed-for preparations repeat themselves year after year into beloved lifetime rituals.

Having retired some time ago after 52 years in the sugar industry, including working closely with Governments and regional institutions along the way, if there is one thing I have learned it is the extreme frailty of all grand plans.

Some of the most vivid poems in the world are written on a huge rock in a remote forest in Sri Lanka.

It is good to be touched by perfection even if one is the victim of it.

When I was a student at Cambridge ages and ages ago we were made aware that the Preamble to the 1359 Statutes of Clare College, where I was resident, bid us members of the College “to preserve the precious pearl of learning.”

I find it hard to understand why most people never, literally never, read poetry.

One of the tragic, eternal facts of human life is that there will always be wars – some the hideous, misguided choice of evil men and some “wars of necessity” but war all the same since the horror and indiscriminate agony caused by war is not changed by what designation war is given.

There are some things that keep out the darkness that continually threatens in anyone’s life.

I remember “Read to Succeed” was once the theme of the activities and exhibitions organized to celebrate the work of library services for the children of Guyana.