Quotes from Erik Larson

As she put it, "All he asked of life was the best of everything.

antipodes in appearance

Of the 791 passengers designated by Cunard as missing, only 173 bodies, or about 22 percent, were eventually recovered, leaving 618 souls unaccounted for. The percentage for the crew was even more dismal, owing no doubt to the many deaths in the luggage room when the torpedo exploded.

Jack the Ripper became the embodiment, forever, of pure evil. Every Chicago resident who could read devoured these reports from abroad, but none with quite so much intensity as Dr. H. H. Holmes.

my heart leapt like a young salmon.

His demand for fine things, especially those rendered in gold, was fed as well by a kind of institutional larceny.

White Star liner Megantic

Churchill did not and frankly could not manage the staggering pressure of directing the war by himself. He relied heavily on others, even if sometimes these others merely served as an audience on whom he could test his thoughts and plans.

the first officer, it seemed as if the ship were caught at the convergence of two storms, a gale from the north and a hurricane from the east, that together produced a tornado. Menard agreed.

The one firm rock on which everyone was willing to build for the last two years was the French army," wrote Foreign Secretary Halifax in his diary, "and the Germans walked through it like they did through the Poles.

The city seemed untroubled by the war. Broadway—"the Great White Way," so dubbed for its bright electric lighting—came brilliantly alight and alive each night, as always, although now with unexpected competition. A number of restaurants had begun providing lavish entertainment along with meals, even though they lacked theater licenses. The city was threatening a crackdown on these maverick "cabarets.

All were wealthy and at the peaks of their careers, but all also bore the scars of nineteenth-century life, their pasts full of wrecked rail cars, fevers, and the premature deaths of loved ones.

He cared little about whether they had expertise with airplanes. "They are all captains of industry, and industry is like theology," Beaverbrook said. "If you know the rudiments of one faith you can grasp the meaning of another.

A safe but sometimes chilly way of recalling the past is to force open a crammed drawer. If you are searching for anything in particular you don't find it, but something falls out at the back that is often more interesting. J. M. Barrie "Dedication" Peter Pan 1904

Homicide, or rather the homicide fantasy, is the engine that drives America's fascination with guns. Target shooters spend hour after hour

Despite the blackout, theaters were full, there were plenty of nightclubs for late dancing after restaurants closed, and many people still gave dinner parties, often organized round a son on leave.

He insisted on keeping a Bren light machine gun in the trunk of his car, having vowed on numerous occasions that if the Germans came for him, he would take as many as possible with him to the grave.

No one knows who coined the term, but it fit, and the Montauk became the first building to be called a skyscraper.

I know it is difficult now you are living with so many rich people, only do try & save a bit on your messing bills, etc. Remember baby Winston & I are willing to starve for you, but we would prefer not to.

They tasted a new snack called Cracker Jack and a new breakfast food called Shredded Wheat.

Riders on the Ferris Wheel got the clearest, most horrific view of what happened next.

He often carried a revolver—and often misplaced it, according to Inspector Thompson. From time to time, Thompson recalled, Churchill would abruptly brandish his revolver and, "roguishly and with delight," exclaim: "You see, Thompson, they will never take me alive! I will get one or two before they can shoot me down.

In Minneapolis there had been only silence and the inevitable clumsy petitions of potato-fingered men looking for someone, anyone, to share the agony of their days. That

He joined the crew of the Lake Champlain, a small steam-powered cargo ship owned by the Beaver Line of Canada but subsequently acquired by the Canadian Pacific Railway. He was its second officer in May 1901, when it became the first merchant vessel to be equipped with wireless.