Quotes from Erik Larson

Edith wrote later, "This was the accidental meeting which carried out the old adage of 'turn a corner and meet your fate.

German U-boats were sinking ships at such a high rate that Admiralty officials secretly predicted Britain would be forced to capitulate by November 1, 1917. During the worst month, April, any ship leaving Britain had a one-in-four chance of being sunk. In

Dr. Hervey Cleckley described the prototypical psychopath as "a subtly constructed reflex machine which can mimic the human personality perfectly. … So perfect is his reproduction of a whole and normal man that no one who examines him in a clinical setting can point out in scientific or objective terms why, or how, he is not real.

He marched toward his climax: "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.

The old world was passing. P. T. Barnum died; grave-robbers attempted to steal his corpse. William Tecumseh Sherman died, too. Atlanta cheered. Reports from abroad asserted, erroneously, that Jack the Ripper had returned. Closer at hand, a gory killing in New York suggested he might have migrated to America. In Chicago the former warden of the Illinois State Penitentiary at Joliet, Major R. W. McClaughry, began readying the city for the surge in crime that everyone expected the fair to produce

considered Churchill to be capricious

The rest, with faces contorted from the strain of trying to listen, saw distant men gesturing wildly into the sound-killing miasma of whispers, coughs and creaking shoe leather.

if the British Commonwealth and Empire lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'

constantly keep in mind that whatever has happened

But you will ride it—instead of being driven before it—Thank Heaven that you are there, & at the helm of our destiny

The decor of the house was by now legendary, and was fast becoming the model for a style of country home decor that emphasized color, comfort, and lack of formality. Its popularity prompted Mrs. Tree to create a home-design firm around the concept. Her future business partner would later describe her aesthetic as one of "pleasing decay.

When the long shadows have all merged into one and the stars begin to gleam out over the lake and the domes of the palaces of the White City.

four essential human freedoms": speech, worship, and freedom from want and fear.

seemed like jewels on a skull.

There would be miracles at the fair—the chocolate Venus de Milo would not melt, the 22,000-pound cheese in the Wisconsin Pavilion would not mold—

Never before in civilization have such numbers of young girls been suddenly released from the protection of the home and permitted to walk unattended upon the city streets and to work under alien roofs.

In this time when writing long letters was everyday practice, men of normal sensibility saw these cards as the most crabbed of media, little better than telegrams

the Crippen case tended to be overlooked, however, because of an event a year and a half later that further sealed Marconi's success. In April 1912 the Titanic struck an iceberg

Monday was an apple-crisp day with temperatures that never exceeded sixty-two degrees, under vivid cerulean skies.

The edition was full of fresh detail about the North London Cellar Murder and the escalating search for two suspects, a doctor and his lover.

One of the most persistent problems of the day was "offensive feet," caused by the prevailing habit of washing feet only once a week. To combat this, Hollingsworth wrote, "Take one part muriatic acid to ten parts of water; rub the feet every night with this mixture before retiring to bed." To rid your mouth of the odor of onions, drink strong coffee.

The company had a remarkable safety record: not a single passenger death from sinking, collision, ice, weather, fire, or any other circumstance where blame could be laid upon captain or company

Here she joined the universal struggle shared by men and women throughout time, to temper rejection so as not to lose a friend forever.

You know my dislike for saying 'good-bye' and were prepared to find that I had skipped this morning. To say that i was sorry to leave you all is to put it only one half as strongly as I feel.