Although there are only a few of us left who played an active part in the Second World War, for us it’s insulting, an out-and-out mockery, what these pusillanimous, authoritarian fools want to do and impose on us in the name of security, that prehistoric pretext. We didn’t fight those who wanted to control each and every aspect of our lives only to see our grandchildren come along and slyly but very precisely fulfil the crazed fantasies of the very enemies we vanquished.
Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow. Volume One. Fever and Spear [2002], trans. Margaret Jull Costa [2005] (New York: New Direction Books, 2007), 369.