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
“We ran, as graceful as a burst beetroot.”
― Kate Griffin, quote from The Midnight Mayor
“The answer to Russia's problems lies here, in Russia. . . . The church is the key. If Russia's guiding force is not religion, then her people will be listless. We can have Western laws, independent judges, perhaps even parliaments -- but only if they grow gradually out of a spiritual renewal. That has to come first.”
― Edward Rutherfurd, quote from Russka: the Novel of Russia
“They had scraped up fresh river fish, and stewed them with white wine and aubergines; also a rare local bird which combined the tender flavour of partridge with the solid bulk of the turkey; they had roasted it and stuffed it with bananas, almonds, and red peppers; also a baby gazelle which they had seethed with truffles in its mother's milk; also a dish of feathery Arab pastry and a heap of unusual fruits. Mr Baldwin sighed wistfully. "Well," he said, "I suppose it will not hurt us to rough it for once.”
― Evelyn Waugh, quote from Scoop
“Psalms 127:1." Slowly, Eaton leafed through the book, and then he said, "Is this it? 'Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”
― Irving Wallace, quote from The Man
“When the reader has stopped to wonder at your delamificatious vocabulary, or, worse, when the reader has stopped because the word you've used has no more meaning to him than a random ptliijnbvc of letters, the reader is not involved in your story. ... Generally, saying 'edifice' instead of 'building' doesn't tell your reader anything about the building; it tells the reader that you know that word edifice.”
― Howard Mittelmark, quote from How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them—A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide
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