Quotes from Erik Larson

he never tired and was always patient and polite. These were his strengths. His weakness was his belief that evil had boundaries.

He issued an appeal to the greater spirit of Britons everywhere. "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and Empire lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'

B]eing broke didn't disturb me in the least. I had started with nothing, and if I now found myself with nothing, I was at least even. Actually, I was better than even: I had had a wonderful time.

The ranks included a carpenter and furniture-maker named Elias Disney, who in coming years would tell many stories about the construction of this magical realm beside the lake. His son Walt would take note.

He could look at himself in a mirror and tell himself that he was one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the world... He could feel that he was a god in disguise.

Göring summoned Willy Messerschmitt for a meeting and took him to task for aiding Hess. The Luftwaffe chief asked Messerschmitt how he could possibly have let an individual as obviously insane as Hess have an airplane. To which Messerschmitt offered an arch rejoinder: "How am I supposed to believe that a lunatic can hold such a high office in the Third Reich?" Laughing, Göring said, "You are incorrigible, Messerschmitt!

They looked more like day laborers than seamen.

We are all well and satisfied with the amount and variety of work our good fortune has given us to do.

THAT DAY, AS A herald of the invasion that seemed soon to come, the Germans seized and occupied Guernsey, a British dependency in the Channel Islands off the coast of Normandy, less than two hundred air miles from Chequers. It was a minor action—the Germans held the island with only 469 soldiers—but troubling all the same.

I think I have felt fear & anxiety & sorrow in small doses for the first time in my life. I do so love being young & I don't very much want to be 18. Although I often behave in a completely idiotic & 'haywire' fashion—yet I feel I have grown up quite a lot in the last year. I am glad of it.

His quest to create a powerful first impression was good showmanship, but it also exposed the aesthetic despot residing within.

strict economy in the use of natural resources has not been practiced, but it must be henceforth unless we are immoral enough to impair conditions in which our children are to live."25

It was the judgment of a skilled and experienced man, and although others might have acted differently and perhaps more successfully he ought not, in my opinion, to be blamed." Mersey found Cunard's

The fair alone consumed three times as much electricity as the entire city of Chicago.

In the following pages I tell the story of these men and this event, but I must insert here a notice: However strange or macabre some of the following incidents may seem, this is not a work of fiction.

You don't pay much attention to the construction of ships?" "No, as long as they float; if they sink, I get out.

If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free, and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands; but if we fail then the whole world, including the United States, and all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more prolonged, by the lights of a perverted science.

Fires were still raging all over the place; some of the larger buildings were mere skeletons, and many of the smaller houses had been reduced to piles of rubble." He was struck in particular by the sight of paper Union Jacks planted in mounds of shattered lumber and brick. These, he wrote, "brought a lump to one's throat.

No one had forgotten how in 1885 fouled water had ignited an outbreak of cholera and typhoid that killed ten percent of the city's population.

It is not given to human beings—happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable—to foresee or to predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events.—WINSTON CHURCHILL, EULOGY FOR NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN, NOVEMBER 12, 1940

However strange or macabre some of the following incidents may seem, this is not a work of fiction.

When I look back on the perils which have been overcome, upon the great mountain waves in which the gallant ship has driven, when I remember all that has gone wrong, and remember also all that has gone right, I feel sure we have no need to fear the tempest. Let it roar, and let it rage. We shall come through.

With the onset of winter Burnham ordered all hydrants packed in horse manure to prevent freezing. On the coldest days the manure steamed, as if the hydrants themselves were on fire.

As bombs fell, libidos soared. . . Young people were reluctant to contemplate death without having shared their bodies with someone else. It was sex at its sweetest: not for money or marriage, but for love of being alive and wanting to give.