William Manchester · 992 pages
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“It is the definition of an egoist that whatever occupies his attention is, for that reason, important.”
― William Manchester, quote from The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
“There was, however, a difference between his mood and that of the rest of the cabinet. They felt desperate; he felt challenged.”
― William Manchester, quote from The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
“If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or, as it were, fondle them—peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on their shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you will at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances.”
― William Manchester, quote from The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
“Biographer diagnoses reaction to restriction as a tell of true character. Some use even prison as a time of reflection and planning. Others, like Churchill, quickly chafe at missing interaction and opportunity.”
― William Manchester, quote from The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
“Today's Europeans and Americans who reached the age of awareness after midcentury when the communications revolution lead to expectations of instantanaiy are exasperated by the slow toils of history. They assume that the thunderclap of cause will be swiftly followed by the lightening bolt of effect.”
― William Manchester, quote from The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
“A man can wear out a particular part of his mind by continually using it and tiring it… the tired parts of the mind can be rested and strengthened, not merely by rest, but by using other parts…. It is only when new cells are called into activity, when new stars become lords of the ascendant, that relief, repose, refreshment are afforded.”
― William Manchester, quote from The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary; it fulfils the same function as pain in the human body, it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things.”
― William Manchester, quote from The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
“GBS wired Winston: “Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend—if you have one.” Churchill wired back: “Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second—if there is one.”61”
― William Manchester, quote from The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
“The key to successful extramarital sex, therefore, was discretion. Mrs. Patrick Campbell, perhaps the most outspoken woman in polite society, said dryly: “It doesn’t matter what you do in the bedroom, as long as you don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.”43”
― William Manchester, quote from The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
“Byron wrote his shortest and most eloquent poem as a testament to a titled woman who had taken leave of her husband for a nine-month romp with him: Caroline Lamb, Goddamn.”
― William Manchester, quote from The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
“I like to live in the past. I don't think people are going to get much fun in the future”
― William Manchester, quote from The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
“the essence of American journalism is vulgarity divested of truth.”
― William Manchester, quote from The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
“read three or four books at a time to avoid tedium”—and”
― William Manchester, quote from The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
“In the nineteenth century,” he observed, “Jules Verne wrote Round the World in Eighty Days. It seemed a prodigy. Now you can get around it in four, but you do not see much of it on the way.”
― William Manchester, quote from The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
“Of course. That's what people do in a disordered world, a world of freedom and choice: they leave when they want. They disappear, they come back, they leave again. And you are left to pick up the pieces on your own.”
― Lauren Oliver, quote from Requiem
“But one thing could not happen; it could not be that great and wise men of exalted soul who would raise lasting buildings for the love of God, so that the world should be more beautiful and man live in it better and more easily, should everywhere and for all time vanish from this earth. Should they too vanish, it would mean that the love of God was extinguished and had disappeared from the world. That could not be.”
― Ivo Andrić, quote from The Bridge on the Drina
“Even a stone has its uses, and man who is the most intelligent of all creatures must be of some use, hasn't he?”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Dead Souls
“Let me tell you something, Mari. The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you. And once that happens, you've had it: things'll never be the same. All you can do is go on, living alone down there in the darkness...”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from After Dark
“What was worse than losing you was when you started to hurt me. Your words and actions made me hate coming to school. They made me uncomfortable in my own home.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
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