Quotes from Sam Tanenhaus

Our nemesis is time, against which we have a single ally, memory, and even it betrays us.

In literature and in life we ultimately pursue, not conclusions, but beginnings.

We all nurture impulses which promise freedom from the demands of others, even if that freedom means death.

That image of a chessboard — an epic contest between two giant players, carefully nudging their pieces around the globe as part of a grand strategy — has indeed become a familiar metaphor for the Cold War. But it is misleading. Many decisions remembered today for their farsighted, tactical brilliance were denounced in their day as weak-willed. And big, public gestures often made less difference than the small, hidden ones.

It is hardly a coincidence that the cadences of Chambers's HUAC testimony should anticipate the prose of Witness . The House Committee on Un-American Activities had given him his true voice...

In literature and in life we ultimately pursue, not conclusions, but beginnings.