“I want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning to the end.”

The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.

Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war.

Woman was the Church’s rival, the temptress, the distraction, the obstacle to holiness, the Devil’s decoy.

When commerce with Moslems flourished, zeal for their massacre declined.

It is wiser, I believe, to arrive at theory by way of evidence rather than the other way around…. It is more rewarding, in any case, to assemble the facts first and, in the process of arranging them in narrative form, to discover a theory or a historical generalization emerging of its own accord.

Russians, in the knowledge of inexhaustible supplies of manpower, are accustomed to accepting gigantic fatalities with comparative calm.

Belgium, where there occurred one of the rare appearances of the hero in history, was lifted above herself by the uncomplicated conscience of her King and, faced with the choice to acquiesce or resist, took less than three hours to make her decision, knowing it might be mortal.

To be right and overruled is not forgiven to persons in responsible positions.

To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.

Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.

For most people reform meant relief from ecclesiastical extortions.

One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.

War is the unfolding of miscalculations.

The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.

Learning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced

Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place.

I don’t pay any attention to what the Baltimore Sun editorial page says about anything.

I come around to your house personally and wet your finger while you’re turning the pages.

After the Democrats shoved the 2700 pages of ObamaCare down our throats – and we did find out how expensive, controlling, and coercive the legislation was – a majority of Americans wanted the Supreme Court to toss it aside as unconstitutional.

I’ve never read a kayak manual, but I’m pretty sure page one says ‘Use in water.’

Television can stir emotions, but it doesn’t invite reflection as much as the printed page.

When you go to a great concert something that happens is there is a deep sense of communality and connectedness one to another – as though we are all looking to eachother and saying yeah, we get it, we’re all on one page.

Indians were here first – it’s about time. We’re way behind the African Americans and Hispanic Americans in getting politically involved, but we’re beginning to take a page out of their notebook.

The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime