“I was born at the end of World War II, and so I was young in the ’60s. This means that I belong to the so-called (at least in Hungary) ‘great generation’. Young people of this generation, especially in America and Western Europe, rebelled against the existing system, showing their dissatisfaction by protests, new types of music and by outrageous clothes and behaviour. We – here and in the other socialist countries – experienced this, only because of the limitations of the repressive system, in a much gentler way. I have never been a rebel myself, and yet what tied me to this great generation was my desire to know the world much better, to be more informed than the average, to be a real cosmopolitan. That is why I studied languages and travelled much more than most.”