A kind of victory

“Tomorrow you may be shot in the street by a policeman because you haven’t understood Guaraní, or a man may knife you in a cantina because you can’t speak Spanish and he thinks you are acting in a superior way. Next week, when we have our Dakota, perhaps it will crash with you over Argentina…. My dear Henry, if you live with us, you won’t be edging day by day across to any last wall. The wall will find you of its own accord without your help, and every day you live will seem to you a kind of victory. ‘I was too sharp for it that time,’ you will say, when night comes, and afterwards you’ll sleep well.”

—Graham Greene, Travels with My Aunt