But the satisfactions of compensation are notoriously fleeting. There is no saving grace in being confined to an iron suit, cold and unforgiving. The pleasures of mental agility are much overstated, inevitably—as it now appears to me—by those not exclusively dependent upon them. Much the same can be said of well-meaning encouragements to find nonphysical compensations for physical inadequacy. That way lies futility. Loss is loss, and nothing is gained by calling it by a nicer name. My nights are intriguing; but I could do without them.
Managed profile
Not claimed by Tony Judt
Tony Judt has not joined FLAPSS and has not endorsed it. This page is a reference record assembled from published interviews and public remarks. Every answer below is a direct quotation with the source and date shown next to it.
TJ
Tony Judt
Historian and essayist
United Kingdom · 1948–2010
Arts and letters
About
Historian of twentieth-century Europe, author of Postwar and founding director of the Remarque Institute at New York University. Diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in September 2008 and effectively quadriplegic within a year, he dictated a sequence of memoir essays for the New York Review of Books and gave a small number of interviews before his death in August 2010.
11 answers
Every quotation above is reproduced from the source shown beside it and has not been edited. Tony Judt did not write these answers for FLAPSS. Request a correction or removal.