The planet's survival has become so uncertain that any effort, any thought that presupposes an assured future amounts to a mad gamble.

Canetti spent his childhood years from 1905 to 1911 in Ruse until the family moved to Britain. Before settling in Ruse they had lived in Livorno in the 17th century. The original family name was Cañete named after a village in Spain.

He wrote in German and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981 "for writings marked by a broad outlook a wealth of ideas and artistic power".