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1 " a small nation resembles a big family and likes to describe itself that way. In the language of the smallest European people, in Icelandic, the term for " family" is fjölskylda; the etymology is eloquent: skylda means " obligation" ; fjöl means " multiple." Family is thus " a multiple obligation." Icelanders have a single word for " family ties" : fjölskyldubönd: " the cords (bönd) of multiple obligations." Thus in the big family that is a small country, the artist is bound in multiple ways, by multiple cords. When Nietzsche noisily savaged the German character, when Stendhal announced that he preferred Italy to his homeland, no German or Frenchman took offense; if a Greek or a Czech dared to say the same thing, his family would curse him as a detestable traitor. "
2 " I’m an old man, now. I’ve been alone since my 17th birthday. I’d wanted to marry, have a bunch of kids, and maybe be a grandpa. The big family around the Thanksgiving table, laughing and pouring wine and cracking jokes and harmlessly teasing the missus—I wanted that. I wanted to do something good with my life—something right. I didn’t want what happened to Danny, my best childhood friend, to be the only mark I’d ever make in this world. But I thought it best not to fancy such hopes and dreams: a family, love. I’d been cursed by my best friend, and I thought it right not to inflict that curse on anyone who’d be foolish enough to love me. "
― J. Tonzelli , The End of Summer: Thirteen Tales of Halloween
