Quotes from Ken Follett

It was a bold request, but she hated delay: an hour turned into a day, and a day turned into a week, and bright ideas died from lack of oxygen.

Like so many parties, this one was work for a lot of the guests.

person who breaks a promise diminishes herself. It's like losing a finger. It's worse than being paralyzed, which is merely physical. Someone whose promises are worthless has a disabled soul.

The people of the East End did not want to overthrow the British government. On the contrary, they were deeply attached to their elections and their borough councils and their Houses of Parliament. They liked their system of government so much that they were determined to defend it against Fascism even if it would not defend itself.

en política, la memoria podía alargarse mucho.

Monks committed all the same sins that ordinary people did. He had just been shocked by the woman's shamelessness. The sight of her nakedness remained with him, the way the hot heart of a candle flame, stared at for a few moments, would burn on behind closed eyelids.

They usually had easy answers: send all the Mexicans home, put Hells Angels in the army, castrate the queers. The greater their ignorance, the stronger their opinions. Georgetown was only a few minutes

The simple idea that people should be allowed to worship as they wished caused more suffering than the ten plagues of Egypt.

Any man who needs to surround himself with loyal acolytes doesn't really believe in

Did she go to Washington Redskins football games, or follow the Nats baseball team?

The heart is that kind of map. The self is in the middle and everything else is out of proportion. You draw the friends of your youth large, then later it's impossible to rescale them when other more important people need to be added. Anyone who has done you wrong is shown too big, and so is anyone you loved.

there would never be time for him and Sunni to grow accustomed to each other, to fall into routines, to take each other for granted;

Concision is the sister of talent.

A man thought he could fly, so he jumped off the top of a ten-story building, and as he fell past the fifth floor, flapping his arms uselessly in the air, he was heard to say: 'So far, so good.

pilgrims should not spend too much time planning their journey, for they might learn of so many hazards that they would decide not to go.

Her Protestant pastor had been sympathetic, until the Gestapo terrified him into silence. Perhaps the same would happen again. But she did not know what else to do. Heinrich took

Mankind is fallible, so we should not rely on our own reasoning. We cannot hope to understand the world – all we can do is stand amazed at God's creation. True knowledge comes only from revelation. We should not question received wisdom.

We will have to repent, in this generation, not merely for the hateful words and actions of bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good

was one of those inadequate people who were so scared by life that they preferred to live under harsh authority, to be told what to do and what to think by a government that allowed no dissent. They were foolish and dangerous, but there were an awful lot of them.

Texaco's chairman, the Hitler-admiring Torkild Rieber, was using the company's tankers to smuggle oil to the rebels in defiance of a specific request from President Roosevelt.

Growing up is learning to deceive.

Je n'ai pas gagné au tribunal […] mais ce que j'ai obtenu est infiniment plus précieux. Aujourd'hui, j'ai sauvé l'âme d'un homme.

If you're going to have a fight, you might as well fight for what you really want.

The victim had been John Lewis, the theology student. He had been attacked by thugs in a white restroom in Rock Hill, South Carolina.