54
" The writer, indeed every real artist, was the devil, rivalling God in creativity, trying even to surpass him. God was surely man’s most fatal creation, the devil’s kitsch bitch. It was God, with his insistence on being worshipped and admired, who made the argument of art necessary, keeping the fire of dissent alive in men and women. This dissident was the artist, who spanned with his imagination reason and unreason, the under and the over, the dream and the world, men and women. "
― Hanif Kureishi , The Last Word
55
" He saw Hercules in the movie theater time after time, hour after hour, examining Park, judging him, admiring him, and, ultimately, promising himself that one day he, Arnold Schwarzenegger, then thirteen years old and poor as he was, would be like him, would even surpass Reg Park. "