Bruce Chatwin: Ueberlegenheit ueber die Tiere?

Bruce Chatwin sagt in seinem Buch Traumpfade (The Songlines, 1987): "Demokrit hat gesagt, es sei absurd, dass Menschen sich ihrer Ueberlegenheit ueber die Tiere ruehmten, die doch in den wichtigen Dingen unsere Lehrmeister seien: die Spinne im Weben und Ausbessern, die Schwalbe in der Architektur, der Schwan und die Nachtigall im Singen.
Man koennte diese Reihe endlos fortsetzen: die Fledermaus fuer den radar, der Delphin fuer das Sonar und, wie Ibn Chaldun sagte, die Hoerner fuer die Lanze." (p354, Fischer Taschenbuch, 1992)

(from Amazon, 2012)

Another one from The Bone People

(p293 of Penguin Books, 1986.)
"Pig ignorant old Australian bastards should get back where they belong. To their dead-hearted, deadbeat offal-catering country. Not parasitise here, littering up Godzone."

Final Paragraph of "Shantaram"

"For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for a truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. We live on."

Well, this is the last five lines of Gregory David Roberts' Shantaram, meaning Man of God's Peace. (London: Abacus, 2004)

Wow. Take a deep breath now.