A Tale of Two Cities

"As mayor of a large metropolis, the living conditions of our residents are always present in my mind. Every decision I make, I try to evaluate if it will help improve the quality of life of every Angeleno. But Dickens really dissects both the aristocrats and the revolutionaries, to show that change is never easy. As progressives, we value government’s role and power to improve our cities and communities, but at the same time we must never forget that the ends never justify the means. And that the majority cannot deprive the minority of their inalienable rights that come with a democracy."

"Well, A Tale of Two Cities is, of course, a classic love story, about all the things those awful frogs were doing, a schoolboy story really. It should have been a children’s story. That’s his genius, of course. His genius is as a storyteller. You hear the great academics saying even now that Dickens was not really a great writer. It’s sheer arrogance! But we all consider him to be a great storyteller. I think it’s partly his skill, which Shakespeare does as well, of imbuing the minor characters with as much wit and making them as sensational as the major characters. You fall in love with so many of the lesser lights because he paints them so well. And he adapts so well because of that, I think. Bleak House is a masterpiece, of course, but the television adaptation is one of the best things that has ever been on television. It’s a terrible thing to say and not true, of course, but it’s nearly as good as the book! Or as near as anything’s ever been."

"I started a paper about the historical reality in this book. And as I studied it more deeply I got depressed because the things that were happening were similar to Iraq. How the mob could be turned against people by devious minds. They just killed people without even knowing them. The people who were killed were probably very good people, you never know. You just can’t kill haphazardly, heads rolling everywhere for nothing. There must be a way to check these things. You can’t allow mob anger. There were people behind the scenes subconsciously motivating them to do all these terrible things without really thinking about it. I was looking at this thinking, well, this reign of terror ended in France, but in Iraq it is still going on."

"Yes. I came from a low-income family, which was not extreme poverty but not so far away. I have created a programme of microcredit, created a bank to lend money to the poor people so that they can start commercial activities for themselves. And that became well-known, all over the world. The bank is called the Grameen Bank and the method we use is called microcredit."

"I'm not sure it is strictly about aging, but there is a section near the end of "A Tale of Two Cities," by Charles Dickens, where Carton looks back at his life and considers his death. I find it enormously moving and strangely modern."

"That scene at the end, where the little seamstress and Sydney Carton are being taken to the guillotine. She's terrified and asks him to hold her hand, which he does. That got to me."