"The years shall run like rabbits," said he, blatantly stealing from Auden. He thought I wouldn't notice. I'm sure it never occurred to him someone like me would even know who Auden was, would even know what poetry was. Certainly, I would know the lyrics to pop songs. I would know how to iron. I would know the subway system. I would know where to get drugs. I might even know what was in the papers, were it about some gruesome crime, but art and literature, those were doors meant to be firmly closed against me and my sort.
Not that I think he meant to be a small-minded, bigoted, classist idiot, he just had no imagination. When the revolution comes, it won't be from deliberate poor treatment or manipulation, it will be from neglect. I'm an optimist, in that I don't think people, even rich people, are bad by nature. But I am realistic in that I think all people are lazy by nature. Some people work agin it. And some people work agin it in different areas of their life. So people who aren't lazy in business and make it rich may be quite lazy in their personal affairs; wives by the wayside, children who won't speak to them except with a hand out, friends who are just waiting for them to turn so they can put the knife in. And some people who are meticulous in their personal affairs are doomed to be poor cause they'll never get it together in their work life.
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