Quotes from Ken Follett

Communism was a work in progress, with mistakes being made on the road to a fair society. The NKVD with its torture chambers was an aberration, a cancer in the body of Communism. One day it would be surgically removed. But probably not in wartime.

So much hangs on the decisions of a small number of poorly educated people." "That's democracy." Gus smiled. "A terrible way to run a country, but every other system is worse.

There was much talk about why the prime minister had brought back such a troublesome and unpredictable colleague, and the consensus was that he preferred to have Churchill inside the tent spitting out.

The fourth issue would go to the printer tomorrow. He was not so happy with this one: there was no big controversy. He put that out of his mind for the moment and

Our great stumbling block, in our stride toward freedom, is not the White Citizens' Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner. It's the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice;

Un hombre siempre se perfecciona al lograr comprender algo

me inclino siempre del lado de quienes afrontan la tentación cayendo en ella.

All the same he was depressed and bitter. Life never dealt him a winning hand.

They all looked as Da came in from the street, wearing his meeting suit and a flat miner's cap, perspiring from the walk up the hill. He took a step into the room, then stopped, staring. "Look who's here," Mam said

The original eight cryptanalysts were supplemented, after Pearl Harbor, by some of the musicians from the band of the sunken battleship California. For reasons no one understood, musicians were good at decoding.

But now he realized that, as a Jew, you could go anywhere in the world and always find someone to treat you like family.

If you owe a hundred dollars, the bank has you in its power; but if you owe a million dollars, you have the bank in your power.

Despite everything they say, they are not popular. And the longer they stay in government, the better people will get to know their wickedness.

In 1872 the anarchist leader Mikhail Bakunin warned Karl Marx that Communists in power would be as oppressive as the aristocracy they replaced. After what has happened in Russia, can you honestly say Bakunin was wrong?

He put on his coat and hat. Then he returned to the kitchen. He kissed his mother and embraced his father. "What's this for?" said his father. "You're only going to work." "It's just in case we never meet again," Volodya said. Then he went out.

There's no rule that says public opinion has to be consistent." Gus found his boss's calm admirable, but a bit frustrating. "How the heck do you deal with that?" Wilson smiled, showing his bad teeth. "Gus, did someone tell you politics was easy?

Wilson says a leader must treat public opinion the way a sailor deals with the wind, using it to blow the ship in one direction or another, but never trying to go directly against it.

They were taught about democracy in London, not about tyranny in Cairo.

1872 the anarchist leader Mikhail Bakunin warned Karl Marx that Communists in power would be as oppressive as the aristocracy they replaced. After what has happened in Russia, can you honestly say Bakunin was wrong?

She grinned at her husband. He was wearing a blue towelling bathrobe that was too small for him, and it showed his long, muscular legs. 'You're not so bad yourself,' she said, and she picked up the phone. It was her mother. 'Happy Christmas,' she said.

Renunciar a la felicidad es como arrojar piedras preciosas al océano. Es mucho peor que cualquier pecado.

El anarquismo es la creencia de que nadie está legitimado para gobernar. Todas las filosofías políticas, desde el derecho divino de los reyes hasta el contrato social de Rousseau, intentan justificar la autoridad. Los anarquistas creen que todas esas teorías fallan, y que por tanto ninguna forma de autoridad es legítima.

Her well-being was more important to me than my own. I have learned, during the course of a long life, that that is the meaning of love.

Y recuerden: aunque el presidente les diga que llueve y parezca muy, muy sincero, miren por la ventana… solo para asegurarse».