Kati Marton > Quotes

“In her experience, language cannot be trusted. Words are weapons to be deployed cautiously.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“This is her power move: letting an alpha male keep talking and waiting patiently as he self-destructs.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“Her description of a perfect day sounds perfectly ordinary: “I will sleep long, have a relaxed breakfast. Then I’ll go out for some fresh air, chat with my husband or with friends. I might go to the theater, to the opera, or listen to a concert. If I’m rested, I might read a good book. And I would cook dinner. I like cooking!” These are the dreams of a person who had not been truly free for the last sixteen years. Though no longer young, Merkel is spry enough to enjoy the simplest of pleasures: country rambles, leisurely meals with (nonpolitical) friends, and music and books instead of charts, polls, and position papers. These pleasures will not replace the satisfaction of outsmarting a foe with her legendary stamina and command of facts. But, never one to ruminate over feelings, she will observe her own reaction to this new life with a scientist’s curiosity. In the short term, she is likely to spend time near her childhood home in the province of Brandenburg, where she first learned to love nature and which she still regards as her Heimat, or spiritual home. She’ll travel, too. Among her stated dreams is to fly over the Andes Mountains—an idealized destination; a metaphor for freedom.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“Bureaucrats do not, as a whole, like to make decisions. Decisions require a degree of courage and responsibility, qualities in short supply among public servants on both sides of the Great Divide.”
― Kati Marton, Wallenberg: The Incredible True Story of the Man Who Saved Thousands of Jews

“A woman in power has more urgent business to attend to than her ego.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“There is strength in calm”).”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“In Paris, I felt connected to history in a way I did not in America. Elderly men I passed in the Latin Quarter, with empty sleeves pinned to the shoulder of their jackets, reminded me of the not-so-distant war.”
― Kati Marton

“Never hate your enemies; it affects your judgment.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace. Thomas Mann, German-American author (1875–1955)”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“If everyone just sweeps outside their door, the whole village will be clean,” Merkel said sometimes, quoting Goethe.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“You are only able to love in the first place if you love yourself, if you believe in yourself, if you know yourself. Only then can you approach the other.… Love can only come if you are clear about who you are.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“With statistics, graphs, and charts, the country's highest-ranking soccer fan proposed a training plan for the speechless coach.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“Be self-confident. Don’t let others take the bread”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“Merkel brought a set of core values to the office: her deep but private faith, an unshakable creed of duty and service; a belief in Germany’s permanent debt to Jews for what she has always referred to as the Shoah; her scientist’s devotion to precise, evidence-based decision-making; and a visceral loathing of dictators who imprison their own people. Freedom of expression and movement are more than hackneyed phrases for a politician who spent her first thirty-five years lacking both.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“each week, before they dealt the cards, my father presented his typed report on himself and my mother to Marika, who copied it in her hand, then burned the original.”
― Kati Marton, Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America

“Wir schaffen das,”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” —Marie Curie (1867–1934)”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“Cities tend to reflect the character of their residents. Budapest is a dramatic, theatrical kind of place. More than anything else it resembles a stage set.”
― Kati Marton, Wallenberg: Missing Hero

“لا شيء في الحياة يستدعي الخوف، وإنما كل شيء يستدعي الفهم". ماري كوري (1867-1934)”
― Kati Marton, المستشارة؛ مسيرة أنجيلا ميركل الملحمية

“In Donetsk, a major industrial center, pro-Russian militia in camouflage and ersatz military gear stormed the local legislature, brandishing Soviet and czarist-era banners (with even a Confederate flag for added nostalgia).”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“It’s the ones who don’t tell you they are informing,” he said, “that you have to worry about.”
― Kati Marton, Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America

“form of strength in the weak and”
― Kati Marton, True Believer: Stalin's Last American Spy

“The Soviet state, like any other giant enterprise, is, above all, a bureaucracy. Bureaucrats do not, as a whole, like to make decisions. Decisions require a degree of courage and responsibility, qualities in short supply among public servants on both sides of the Great Divide.”
― Kati Marton, Wallenberg: Missing Hero

“women enrich life.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“تلعثمت في عباراتها للحظة قبل أن تستعيد اتزانها كالمعتاد، إذ كان شعارها In der Ruhe liegt die Kraft أي القوة تكمن في الهدوء،”
― Kati Marton, المستشارة؛ مسيرة أنجيلا ميركل الملحمية

“The riddle that was making the rounds was: “What is the difference between Hitler and Chamberlain? Answer: Chamberlain takes his weekend in the country. Hitler takes his country in the weekend.”
― Kati Marton, Wallenberg: Missing Hero

“Both Merkel and Obama read Yuval Harari’s somewhat ponderous Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind for pleasure. And though their tastes are widely different, both find escape and relaxation in music.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“This also serves as a clever way of neutralizing potential opponents. “Angela is very skilled at appropriating any issue as soon as it gains traction,” said Gauck.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“Not only in private, but in politics, too.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

“As we shall see, for the rest of her life, the Shoah—as she [Angela Merkel] has always referred to the Holocaust—would be central to her leadership and to her conviction that Germany’s debt to the Jewish people was permanent.”
― Kati Marton, The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel