Richard Martin Cohen > Quotes

“The book is warm. The book is handy. The book is handsome to the eye. The book occupies the shelf of the owner and is a reflection of him or her or, actually, me. The book is always there, to be reached for, to be thumbed and, too often I admit, to wonder about: Why did I buy this? ”
― Richard Cohen

“In 1830, the writer Charles Augustin Saint-Beuve (1804–69) fought one of the owners of Le Globe in heavy rain; Saint-Beuve held an umbrella throughout the duel, claiming that he did not mind dying but he would not get wet.”
― Richard Cohen, By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions

“He either fears his fate too much / Or his deserts are small / That puts it not unto the touch / To win or lose it all.”
― Richard Cohen, By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions

“He [Edward Snowden] has been careful with his info, doling it out to responsible news organizations — The Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, etc. — and not tossing it up in the air, WikiLeaks style, and echoing the silly mantra “Information wants to be free.” (No. Information, like most of us, wants a home in the Hamptons.)” – Richard Cohen, Washington Post (10/22/2013)”
― Richard Cohen

“Palestinians have been welcomed nowhere—not, anyway, as full-fledged citizens. They remain Palestinians, generation after generation, a people who nurse an understandable grudge, who are contained either physically or culturally in camps in which hate festers. They have been wronged, no doubt about it—not just by Jews but by their leaders and their fellow Arabs as well. They are stuck in the amber of grievances. They want a nation they never had. They want to return to a place where most have never lived. It may seem like folly, but history argues otherwise. They have seen it done.”
― Richard Cohen, Israel: Is It Good for the Jews?

“Once introduced, however, the fighting épée was seen to have merits well beyond its uses in formal dueling; its practitioners had to develop the duelist’s mentality: hit without being hit.”
― Richard Cohen, By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions

“Divinity students always fought in these peaked caps, as a scar would terminate their careers.”
― Richard Cohen, By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions

“when the one-legged Marquis de Rivard was challenged, he sent a surgeon in reply and suggested that in the interests of fighting “on an equal footing” his opponent should submit to a similar amputation. The duel was called off.”
― Richard Cohen, By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions

“The symbolism of the action has been replaced by the reality of the touch.”
― Richard Cohen, By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions

“Two poets, Nikolai Gumilyov and Maximilian Voloshin, fought a duel over a non-existent woman.”
― Richard Cohen, By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions

“Agesilao had his rivals even in Italy, chief among them Eugenio Pini from Livorno, who could be just as short-tempered. When he fought Rue “The Invincible,” the French master who, hit twice in succession, failed to acknowledge being hit as etiquette dictated, Pini pulled the button from his foil and with his next attack ripped open Rue’s jacket. He then tore off his mask and shouted, “I suppose that one didn’t arrive either?”
― Richard Cohen, By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions

“As Bill Bryson wrote during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney: ‘A lot of people don’t like fencing because they don’t understand the rules and terminology, but in fact it’s quite simple. There are basically four thrusts, known as the cartilage, the chaise lounge, the aubergine, and the fromage anglais, and these in turn can be parried by four defensive feints – the pastiche, the penchant, the demi-tass...e, and the saumon en croute. Scoring is one point for a petit pois and two for a baguette. Points can equally be deducted for a foot fault or pied a terre, or for a type of illegal lunge known as a zut alors.”
― Richard Cohen

“As late as 1883, when dueling of all kinds had almost been eradicated elsewhere, a rapier duel between a soda-water seller and a catfish dealer lasted eighty-three minutes before either combatant drew blood.”
― Richard Cohen, By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions

“when the American sabreur Peter Westbrook suffered his near-fatal neck injury, his Hungarian coach, Csaba Elthes, simply sat down, lit a cigarette, and muttered, “Typical: I create champion; then I kill him.”
― Richard Cohen, By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions