A conversation between Lawrence Durrell and a philosopher-fisherman called Manoli, during Durrell’s two year stint working for the British administration in Rhodes after the war. 

Manoli gives his views on the English as compared to the Greeks.  I like his piff-paff decisiveness whether or not what he says applies or ever applied to his own people. 

The time in Rhodes was clearly one of the happiest of Durrell’s life, and he met some marvelous characters there. 

‘You are English.  They never see things before they happen.  The English are very slow.’

‘And what about the Greeks?’

‘The Greeks are fast … piff … paff … They decide.’

‘But each one decides differently.’

‘That is individualism.’

‘But it leads to chaos.’

‘We like chaos.’ 

Source: Lawrence Durrell, Reflections on a Marine Venus (London: Faber & Faber, 1960), p. 49

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