Robert Lacey > Quotes

“If an election were held here tomorrow,” Fahd once confided to a colleague, “Bin Baz would beat us without even leaving his house.”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“أعدم ال سعود جهيمان لكنهم جعلوا من افكاره نهجا للدولة”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“When Winston Churchill wanted to rally the nation in 1940, it was to Anglo-Saxon that he turned: "We shall fight on the beaches; we shall fight on the landing grounds; we shall fight in the fields and the streets; we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." All these stirring words came from Old English as spoken in the year 1000, with the exception of the last one, surrender, a French import that came with the Normans in 1066--and when man set foot on the moon in 1969, the first human words spoken had similar echoes: "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Each of Armstrong's famous words was part of Old English by the year 1000.”
― Robert Lacey, The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium, An Englishman's World

“If you see a poor man come into your majlis, try to speak to him before you speak to the other people,” the king told his son. “Never make a decision on the spot. Say you will give your decision later. Never sign a paper sending someone to prison unless you are 100 percent convinced. And once you’ve signed, don’t change your mind. Be solid. You will find that people try to test you.” Fahd was delivering his basic course in local leadership—Saudi Governance 101.
“If you don’t know anything about a subject, be quiet until you do. Recruit some older people who can give you advice. And if a citizen comes with a case against the government, take the citizen’s side to start with and give the officials a hard time the government will have no shortage of people to speak for them.”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“Of all the varieties of modern pollution, noise is the most insidious.”
― Robert Lacey, The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium, An Englishman's World

“There was no law that explicitly banned women from driving in Saudi Arabia. There is none today—the Kingdom’s notorious female driving ban is a matter of social convention, fortified by some ferocious religious pressures. So some Saudi women started looking thoughtfully at their Kuwaiti sisters.”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“When Ali was killed by a Kharijite wielding a poisoned sword during Ramadan in A.H. 40 (A.D. 661), he became one of the earliest victims of Islamic terrorism.”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“الكلاب والنعال من القاذورات التي يبتعد عنها المسلمون، لهذا السبب انتشر الفرح عند العرب عندما قام محتج عراقي برمي حذائه على جورج بوش في عام 2008م.”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“MODERN SAUDI HISTORY IN FIVE EASY LESSONS
If you did not go hungry in the reign of King Abdul Aziz, you would never go hungry.
If you did not have fun in the reign of King Saud, you would never have fun.
If you did not go to prison in the reign of King Faisal, you would never go to prison.
If you did not make money in the reign of King Khaled, you would never make money.
If you did not go bankrupt in the reign of King Fahd . . .”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“Whoever wins society will win this war.”says Prince Mohammed bin Nayef”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“America certainly did its part. But doing the sums, it is now clear that through the eight years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, 1981-89, Saudi Arabia actually provided more material assistance to the world’s varied assortment of anti Communist “freedom fighters” than did the United States, thus hastening the end of the Cold War and helping accomplish the downfall of the “Evil Empire.”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“We're all dying. That's what defines the condition of living."
-Winston S. Churchill”
― Robert Lacey, The Crown: The Official Companion, Volume 1: Elizabeth II, Winston Churchill, and the Making of a Young Queen

“on December 7, 2001, Osama announced that he was leaving. “He deserted us,” remembers Al-Hubayshi bitterly. “After five weeks his people came round telling us to make our way to Pakistan as best we could and surrender to our embassies there. We had been ready to lay down our lives for him, and he couldn’t make the effort to speak to us personally. Today I think that I was made use of by Bin Laden—exploited,
just like all the young kids who went to jihad. What did he care when he sent us over the horizon to die? He was as bad as the religious sheikhs back in Saudi who preached jihad in their
sermons every Friday. How many of them ever sent their own sons to Afghanistan?”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“Better that anger should be directed into jihad abroad than into Iran-style revolution at home.”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“That woman,” Bandar liked to say of the British prime minister, “was a hell of a man.”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“The House of Saud had executed Juhayman. Now they were making his program government policy.”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“Always in life carry this motto with you: When you lose your money, you lose nothing. When you lose your health, you lose something. When you lose your character, you lose everything.”
― Robert Lacey, Meyer Lansky: The Thinking Man’s Gangster

“We were not willing to be the tool of a foreign government,” remembers Sheikh Hassan today. “There were a number of people in authority in Iran who wanted to recruit us against
the Saudi government. They came to us—they made quite a few approaches to us. But we told them that we wished to remain independent.” His aide Jaffar Shayeb did the political talking on the sheikh’s behalf. “We listened to what they said,” says Shayeb of the Iranians. “But we were never willing to
be part of their games.”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“It is exactly right…” replies the elder woman, drawing on all the experience of her 43 years as Queen. “To do nothing is the hardest job of all, and it will take every ounce of energy that you have. To be impartial is not natural, not human. People will always want you to smile or agree or frown, and the moment you do, you will have declared a position, a point of view — and that is the one thing as Sovereign that you are not entitled to do. The less you do, the less you say, or agree, or smile…” “Or think? Or feel? Or breathe? Or exist?”
― Robert Lacey, The Crown: The Official Companion, Volume 1: Elizabeth II, Winston Churchill, and the Making of a Young Queen

“We try to transform each detainee from a young man who wants to die to a young man who wants to live. Prince Mohammed bin Nayef”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“فكّروا في الكلمات الجديدة التي كان علينا أن نتعلمها خلال الثلاثين سنة الماضية : وهّابي، جهادي، أفغان عرب، عاصفة الصحراء، فتوى، القاعدة .
ما الذي تشترك فيه هذه الكلمات؟”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“In fighting its war, the Ministry of the Interior has resorted to a novel tactic–
marriage. No Saudi official will admit on the record that the Kingdom’s terrorist problem might boil down to sexual frustration, but if a social system bans hot-blooded young men from contact with the opposite sex in their most hot-blooded years, perhaps it is hardly surprising that some of them channel this frustration into violence. One cornerstone of the extremist rehab program is to get the “beneficiaries,” as they are called, settled down with a wife as soon as possible. The Ministry of the Interior pays each unmarried beneficiary 60,000 riyals (some $18,000), the going rate for a dowry, or bride price. The family arranges a marriage, and whenever he can, Prince Mohammed turns up for the wedding.

When Khaled Al-Hubayshi was released from Al-Haier prison early in 2007, he wasted no time finding himself a bride at government expense.”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“Poetry reading is the chamber music of the actor's craft.”
― Robert Lacey, Grace

“Orthodox Judaism does not place undue emphasis on hellfire and damnation, nor are children specially pressured to search their souls for sin. But the priorities of a cheder education were anything but material. Read, read, read. Study, study, study. These were the objectives of school — and of life itself.”
― Robert Lacey, Meyer Lansky: The Thinking Man’s Gangster

“It's the love you had that matters, isn't it, not the pain.”
― robert lacey, Grace

“Costello must have been the guiding genius behind the 1929 Atlantic City gathering when Al Capone came to confer with the bootleggers of the East Coast.”
― Robert Lacey, Meyer Lansky: The Thinking Man’s Gangster

“كان الأمير طلال قريبًا من عبدالله، ويشترك معه في رأيه الذي يقول إن الجرعات الكبيرة من الدين أدّت إلى التفكير الذي يدفعُ الشبابَ السعوديّين إلى الانتحار وقتل الناس جماعيًا تحت اسم الله”
― Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

“The Egyptians took their goods to their graves with them. The great dynasties of Britain and Europe try to keep things in the family so long as there is something in the bank. But Americans prefer to turn it into cash and start anew. They are less sentimental about these things.”
― Robert Lacey, Sotheby's: Bidding for Class

“Jeśli mężczyzna wie, czego chce, mówi się, że jest męski. Jeśli kobieta mówi, co myśli, mówi się, że jest wredna - albo i gorzej.”
― Robert Lacey, Model Woman: Eileen Ford and the Business of Beauty

“Stop reading this book a minute. Can you hear something? Some machine turning? A waterpipe running? A distant radio or pneumatic drill digging up the road? Of all the varieties of modern pollution, noise is the most insidious.”
― Robert Lacey, The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium, An Englishman's World