“Love turns, with little indulgence, to indifference or disgust: hatred alone is immortal.”
― On The Pleasure of Hating
― On The Pleasure of Hating
“Oh, they never lie. They dissemble, evade, prevaricate, confound, confuse, distract, obscure, subtly misrepresent and willfully misunderstand with what often appears to be a positively gleeful relish and are generally perfectly capable of contriving to give one an utterly unambiguous impression of their future course of action while in fact intending to do exactly the opposite, but they never lie. Perish the thought.”
― Look to Windward
― Look to Windward
“Even the gentle composer Richard Strauss was carried away by anti-French feeling. He told Kessler in the summer of 1912 that he would go along when war broke out. What did he think he could do, his wife asked. Perhaps, Strauss said uncertainly, he could be a nurse. “Oh, you, Richard!” snapped his wife. “You can’t stand the sight of blood!” Strauss looked embarrassed but insisted: “I would do my best. But if the French get a thrashing, I want to be there.”24”
― The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
― The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
“Nicholas of Montenegro was not so easily swayed, however. He had bribed one of the defenders, an Albanian officer in the Ottoman army, to deliver the city to him. Essad Pasha Toptani, almost as much of a rogue as Nicholas himself, had first murdered the garrison’s commander and then set his price at £80,000 by sending out a message that he had lost a suitcase containing that amount and asking that it be returned.91 On April 23, Essad duly surrendered Scutari to the Montenegrins. In Montenegro’s capital, Cetinje, there were wild celebrations with drunken revelers firing their guns in all directions.”
― The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
― The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
“If I’m kept here much longer, I think I’ll have to have another tantrum. They’re certainly more satisfying than I ever suspected. I can see why a person would get in the habit of it.”
― In Pursuit of the Green Lion
― In Pursuit of the Green Lion
Korkut’s 2025 Year in Books
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