Evan Thomas > Quotes

“Always do what you're afraid to do"-Robert F. Kennedy”
― Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life

“...insults were exchanged, but never conversation" (p.17).”
― Evan Thomas, The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898

“It is remarkable how little concern men seem to have for logic, statistics, and even, indeed, survival: we live by emotion, prejudice, and pride.”24”
― Evan Thomas, Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World

“Roosevelt and Lodge operated by a fairly straightforward and sensible credo: reform without power is meaningless, and power without scruple is corrupt.”
― Evan Thomas, The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898

“O’CONNOR WAS THE most powerful Supreme Court justice of her time. For most of her twenty-four-plus years on the Court, from October 1981 to January 2006, she was the controlling vote on many of the great societal issues, including abortion, affirmative action, and religious freedom, so much so that the press came to call it the O’Connor Court.”
― Evan Thomas, First: Sandra Day O'Connor

“Miltiades was a Greek general who, flush with victory against the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC, led a punitive mission against an ally of Persia, a small island nation that was supposed to be a pushover. The mission was a fiasco and Miltiades was defeated and disgraced; he died of his wounds in prison.”
― Evan Thomas, The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898

“Do not look back, do not regret, take life as it comes and make the most of it. That was Ada Mae’s way, and in time it would be her daughter’s way, too.”
― Evan Thomas, First: Sandra Day O'Connor

“In part because Americans were fearful of enemies within, they went looking for enemies abroad. War and conquest have served to distract nations from their internal contradictions and conflict for as long as nations have existed.”
― Evan Thomas, The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898

“according to Lodge, were guilty of far worse. The war lovers had exaggerated Spanish cruelty in order to get their war, and now they covered up the abuses of American troops.”
― Evan Thomas, The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898

“Groves is perfectly content to let Stimson have a committee to ponder the future of nuclear weapons. Groves has his own committee, the Target Committee, to propose and, if Groves has his way, decide on which city or cities to drop the bomb. Two bombs at least. One to show the Japanese that the Americans have an A-bomb. The other to let them know that the Americans have more than one.”
― Evan Thomas, Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II

“She would walk away from fights she deemed unnecessary, while never shying away from the important ones. She knew when to tease, when to flatter, and when to punch the bully in the nose.”
― Evan Thomas, First: Sandra Day O'Connor

“The 1950s were boringly peaceful (or are remembered that way) only because Eisenhower made them so.”
― Evan Thomas, Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World

“slave camp?”21 He was far from alone in”
― Evan Thomas, Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World

“The end of World War II was, Philip Roth wrote in American Pastoral, “the greatest moment of collective inebriation in history.”
― Evan Thomas, First: Sandra Day O'Connor

“I've never done a job that I didn't think was a stretch." -Sandra Day O'Connor”
― Evan Thomas, First: Sandra Day O'Connor

“one of the most important things to me is that my children and grandchildren are curious. Because, if you’re not curious, you’re not smart.”
― Evan Thomas, First: Sandra Day O'Connor

“plenipotentiary”
― Evan Thomas, The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898

“* There is no question of what Stimson, the old Victorian, would have thought about the hatch covers on the launch tubes holding the missiles, each painted with a replica of the logo of the Playboy Bunny.”
― Evan Thomas, Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II

“wandering off to bars. “I”
― Evan Thomas, First: Sandra Day O'Connor

“Sandra was the product of a world in which Mexicans and Anglos routinely mixed, in part because every Anglo family in El Paso that could afford one had a Mexican housekeeper. Sandra could be a demanding boss; she expected the household helpers to keep up with her rapid-fire schedule, and a few quit or were let go. At the same time, she never raised her voice, and she invited the help to join the family for dinner. When one of the maids became pregnant, she made sure the mother and child were well cared for.”
― Evan Thomas, First: Sandra Day O'Connor

“She is an achieving woman without an edge. She is good-looking without being alienatingly beautiful and bright without being alarmingly intellectual,' wrote McGrory.”
― Evan Thomas, First: Sandra Day O'Connor

“strength of our country. It is the relationship between ourselves and the generations which follow.”
― Evan Thomas, First: Sandra Day O'Connor

“The Soviets, in an unprecedented gesture, published the entire address—which called for mutual disarmament—in Pravda. A sense of hope and possibility briefly flared in Washington and Moscow, and other capitals around the world.”
― Evan Thomas, Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World

“Take a bucket, fill it with water, Put your hand in—clear up to the wrist. Now pull it out; the hole that remains Is a measure of how you’ll be missed… The moral of this quaint example; To do just the best that you can, Be proud of yourself, but remember, There is no Indispensable Man!”
― Evan Thomas, Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World

“Two days later, Sandra achingly wrote to her son Jay from Washington:”
― Evan Thomas, First: Sandra Day O'Connor

“During the Court’s first oral argument, Scalia asked so many questions that Powell turned to Thurgood Marshall, who sat beside him on the bench, and whispered, “Do you think he knows the rest of us are here?”
― Evan Thomas, First: Sandra Day O'Connor

“It is true that it then presupposes that the executive should not habitually be insane!”5”
― Evan Thomas, The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898