Quotes from Erik Larson

Once, in a time long past when men believed they could part mountains, a very different building stood in the Wal-Mart's place, and behind its mist-clouded windows ninety-three children who did not know better happily awaited the coming of the sea.

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.

Vibration due to heavy gunfire or other causes will be felt much less if you do not lie with your head against the wall.

They are blue. Great murderers, like great men in other walks of activity, have blue eyes.

Mass-Observation diarist Olivia Cockett also found it repellent. "It shouldn't be allowed," she insisted. "It makes play and sport of agonies, not to help people bear them, but to pander to the basest, crudest, most-to-be-wiped-out feelings of cruel violence.

Hitler, however, forbade him from being photographed while he smoked, fearing the influence such publicity might have on the morals of German youths.

This was the year in which Churchill became Churchill, the cigar-smoking bulldog we all think we know, when he made his greatest speeches and showed the world what courage and leadership looked like.

The essence of war is violence and moderation in war is imbecility. -Admiral Jacky Fisher of the British Navy

But one thing was quite clear…" he wrote. "[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

Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir ine's blood.

Gompers was calling for fundamental change in the relationship between workers and their overseers. This was dangerous talk, to be suppressed at all costs.

Another man packed a gold seal for stamping wax on the back of an envelope, with the Latin motto Tuta Tenebo, "I will keep you safe.

People were encouraged to wear their gas masks for thirty minutes a day, so that they would grow accustomed to their use. Children took part in gas-attack drills. "All the little children of five have Mickey Mouse gas-masks," wrote Diana Cooper in her diary. "They love putting them on for drill and at once start trying to kiss each other, then they march into their shelter singing: 'There'll always be an England.

Not only this, but through television and telephone we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face." That word: television. In 1900.

The delay you are causing us by not forwarding scale drawings is embarrassing in the extreme.

On ne règne sur les âmes que par le calme

phenomenon for which the word-minting power of the German language did not fail: Zweifrontenkrieg.

But one thing was quite clear…" he wrote. "[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 much better than even: I had had a wonderful time.

Deploying flattery leavened with irony, he began:

One young navy man, Ludovic Kennedy, later to achieve fame as a journalist and broadcaster, recalled how "when we heard it, we knew in an instant, that everything would be all right.

After one raid set London's Natural History Museum on fire, water from firemen's hoses caused seeds in its collection to germinate, among them those from an ancient Persian silk tree, or mimosa—Albizia julibrissin. The seeds were said to be 147 years old.

industries' capacity to produce fighter aircraft—Hurricanes and Spitfires—at a rate high enough not just to compensate for the fast-mounting losses but also to increase the overall number of planes available for combat. Fighters alone in no way could win the war

One of the secrets of a happy marriage is never to speak to or see the loved one before noon.

Suddenly everyone began paying attention to the phases of the moon. Bombers could attack by day, of course, but it was thought that after dark they would be able to find their targets only by moonlight. The full moon and its waxing and waning gibbous phases became known as the "bomber's moon.