Michael Korda > Quotes

“Never walk away from failure. On the contrary, study it carefully for its hidden assets.”
― Michael Korda

“Escapism sold books, to be sure, but not nearly as many as were sold by exposing America’s flaws and making the average American reader (and book club member) look closely at his or her most cherished social assumptions. Americans might not be eager to accept integration, feminism, homosexuality, juvenile delinquency, and the drug culture– or to shoulder the blame for the existence of these problems– but they were certainly willing to read about them.”
― Michael Korda, Making the List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller, 1900-1999

“It must be nice, Queenie thought, to be one thing or another, to know where you belonged.”
― Michael Korda, Queenie

“Cats don't think they're owned by anybody.
Even behind doors and windows, like amiable Wally, they're free. Always.
That may, in fact, be the most important thing about them.”
― Michael Korda

“obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character,” would”
― Michael Korda, Clouds of Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee

“Writers are always outsiders and probably ought to be, since only outsiders see things clearly: the people who publish them, or make movies, or produce plays are always richer and more powerful, however successful the writer is.”
― Michael Korda, Another Life: A Memoir of Other People

“Lee was a born pedagogue, never happier than when his children were learning to do something the right way. It is a testament to Lee's affection and patience that his children did not rebel. In fact, they appear to have thrived.”
― Michael Korda, Clouds of Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee

“Across some of the harshest and most difficult terrain in the world, led by a man who already had a price on his head.”
― Michael Korda, Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

“For the first time it was clear to those who listened to Churchill’s speech—and the whole country listened carefully—that all of the easy presumptions that had shored up appeasement, among them belief in the French Army, the legendary strength of the Maginot Line, the fighting qualities of the BEF, above all the hope that a deal of some kind might be made with Hitler at the last moment, were all swept away by his stark realism, and by the fact, now suddenly clear, that across the Channel a huge, historic battle was being fought—and would very likely be lost. It is no accident that J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings took on its length and dense sweep as an epic in that year, with its central vision of the Dark Lord Sauron’s legions attacking an idyllic land not unlike Britain, as the apparently invincible armies of Hitler swept over one European country after another, taking familiar places that the British, the Belgians, and the French had fought and died for in the 1914–1918 war, ports that were well known to anyone who had ever traveled to “the Continent,” and approached the English Channel itself, advancing swiftly toward the port city of Boulogne, where Napoleon himself had once stood, waiting for the moment to launch 200,000 men at England.”
― Michael Korda, Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” He had an instinctive understanding of the fact that the British as a people dislike boasting, and pride themselves not on victory but on being able to “take it.”
― Michael Korda, Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory

“the United States has no business transforming itself into “an occupying power in a seething Arab world,”12 still good advice; and that if we should ever do so, “I am sure we would regret it.” The length, detail, and meticulous”
― Michael Korda, Ike: An American Hero

“It is worth noting that the desert provides every kind of torment-- heat, cold, rain, flash floods, windstorms, biting insects, and sandstorms, sometimes all on the same day.”
― Michael Korda, Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

“Even those who die in terrorist attacks, and have thus had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, are described as "heroes", though given a choice most of them would no doubt have preferred to be somewhere else when the blow was struck.”
― Michael Korda, Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

“We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. —Irving Townshend, Separate Lives”
― Michael Korda, Cat People: A Witty, Charming, and Sometimes Sad Portrait of Unforgettable Cats and Their People

“Like any man who has two masters with opposing interests, he was torn between them.”
― Michael Korda, Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

“Ask a book publisher how many copies a book has sold, and he or she, presuming you’re not the author, will probably try to remember the size of the first printing, then double it. If you’re the author, the publisher will try to remember the number of copies that were shipped and cut that in half in order to avoid encouraging you to expect a big royalty check.”
― Michael Korda, Making the List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller, 1900-1999

“Lawrence: Clayton, I've decided to go off alone to Damascus, hoping to get killed on the way: for all sakes try and clear this show up before it goes further. We are calling them to fight for us on a lie, and I can't stand it.”
― Michael Korda, Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

“Lawrence's detractors, then and now, still argue that this was merely a "pinprick" in "a sideshow of a sideshow" compared with the western front, but it in fact was a modest first effort at a new kind of warfare-- in which an organized, modern, occupying army was forced to deal with small but lethal attacks by an enemy who appeared suddenly out of nowhere, struck hard, and vanished again; in which the ambush, the roadside or railway "improvised explosive device," the grenade thrown onto a busy café terrace, the destruction of rolling stock, even the "suicide bombers", would take the place of battle; and in which it was almost impossible to distinguish enemy combatants from the surroundings civilian population.”
― Michael Korda, Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

“Lawrence's concern about the loss of twenty Arabs may seem odd during a war in which British war dead would exceed 750,000, but he felt strongly that "Our men were not materials, like soldiers, but friends of ours, trusting in our leadership.”
― Michael Korda, Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

“Howeitat, Auda’s own tribe, where they were feasted with one of those lavish meals that Lawrence loathed so much: hot grease and pieces of mutton on a bed of rice, decorated with the singed heads of the slaughtered sheep.”
― Michael Korda, Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia – The Definitive Biography of the British Soldier, Scholar, and Strategist

“None of this means of course that Robert E. Lee wasn't influenced by his father, or didn't inherit some of his better characteristics. Like Henry Lee, Robert was tall, physically strong, a born horseman and soldier, and so courageous that even his own soldiers often begged him to get back out of range, in vain of course. He had his father's gift for the sudden flank attack that would throw the enemy off balance, and also his father's ability to inspire loyalty--and in Robert's case, virtual worship--in his men. On the other hand, perhaps because of Henry Lee's quarrels with Jefferson and Madison, Robert had an ingrained distrust of politics and politicians, including those of the Confederacy. But the most important trait that influenced Robert was a negative one: his father had been voluble, imprudent, fond of gossip, hot-tempered, and quick to attack anybody who offended or disagreed with him. With Henry Lee, even minor differences of opinions escalated quickly into public feuds. Robert was, or forced himself to be, exactly the opposite. He kept the firmest possible rein on his temper, he avoided personal confrontations of every kind, and he disliked arguments. These characteristics, normally thought of as virtues, became in fact Robert E. Lee's Achilles' heel, the one weak point in his otherwise admirable personality, and a dangerous flaw for a commander, perhaps even a flaw that would, in the end, prove fatal for the Confederacy. Some of the most mistaken military decisions in the short history of the Confederacy can be attributed to Lee's reluctance to confront a subordinate and have it out with him on the spot, face to face.”
― Michael Korda, Clouds of Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee

“This night, however, she surprised me by getting down on her “poor old knees” (as she always referred to them) beside me and told me to pray with her “for the safety of the British Army in France.” Her own palms were pressed tightly together, and there were tears in her eyes behind her gold-rimmed pince-nez. She usually said her prayers long after I had said mine and gone to bed, and she had so far as I know no relatives in the BEF. It was nothing personal—it was as if the whole nation were, for a brief moment, united in anxious prayer or, for those who did not pray, in silent thought.”
― Michael Korda, Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory

“It was soul-destroying work, apt to turn anyone cynical, for the sad, awful truth was that there was hardly any evidence at all of talent in the slush pile and plenty of proof, for those who needed it, that the country was full of crazy people armed with typewriters—far more of them even than of crazy people armed with guns.”
― Michael Korda, Another Life: A Memoir of Other People

“A man who gives himself to the possession of aliens leads a Yahoo life… . He is not one of them… . In my case my effort for these years to live in the dress of Arabs, and to imitate their mental foundation, quitted me of my English self, and let me look at the West and its conventions with new eyes, and destroyed it all for me. At the same time I could not sincerely take on the Arab skin: it was an affectation only.”
― Michael Korda, Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia – The Definitive Biography of the British Soldier, Scholar, and Strategist

“And like all the better professions, editing is something of an art, too, if it’s done well, and something of a mystery as well. Nobody teaches it, of course; you’re born to it, the way a good surgeon is born with the right hands; it’s something you either can or can’t do, though apprenticeship doesn’t hurt.”
― Michael Korda, Another Life: A Memoir of Other People

“My father, Vincent, a rumpled Bohemian who had followed his”
― Michael Korda, Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory

“deemed correct, the student was”
― Michael Korda, Ike: An American Hero

“in war, as in prostitution, the amateur is often better than the professional.”
― Michael Korda, Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory

“No matter how peaceful a situation might seem, you could never be protected from sudden, unexpected violence that might also engulf the stranger.”
― Michael Korda, Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

“As the old saying goes, “If my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle.”
― Michael Korda, With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain