when you read it honestly, then you become an individual and build up a defense against becoming programmed. And if you read poetry to young people, which I very often do—I go to schools, I have even gone to prisons—I feel you can raise in people’s minds the wish never to be an opportunist, never to be a mindless follower. To look always at what’s happening and not to look away from it. That’s the most you can do. You cannot change the world, but you can change the single person, I guess. And a single person who decides not to join the crowd…. You should not look whether you are in or out. You
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