As the Summer pushes on through August, and I listen to nocturnal London play it's unfinished, never-ending symphony of sirens, cars, shouts, hubbub, and screaming motorbikes, I think of what I read this morning that one of my favourite writers died a few nights ago in New York. Tony Judt, a writer who bathed in words, made them sing and a difficult argument luminous.

"I think what we need is a return to a belief not in liberty, because that is easily converted into something else… but in equality. Equality, which is not the same as sameness. Equality of access to information, equality of access to knowledge, equality of access to education, equality of access to power and to politics. We should be more concerned than we are about inequalities of opportunity, whether between young and old or between those with different skills or from different regions of a country. It is another way of talking about injustice. "

Perfectly written, a joy to read, and a statement to live by.