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Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is on page 207 of 1246 of The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
201: "'People on Long Island are afraid to go to bed for fear that when they wake up in the morning they would find their property seized by Robert Moses,' [a] Republican senator shouted. Jumping out of his seat, a Democrat replied: 'Is it not true that if they don't go to bed on Long Island it is because the bedsheets may be in use elsewhere?'"

There's a great Jimmy Walker quote as well, but not fit for goodreads.
17 hours, 4 min ago Add a comment
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is on page 180 of 1246 of The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
done with Part III. Moses turns toward parks and away from reform; historo-politico-geographic survey of Long Island; Caro's disdain for robber barons.

p 148: "Their creed was summed up in two quotes: Commodore Vanderbilt's 'Law? What do I care for law? Hain't I got the power?' and J. P. Morgan's 'I owe the public nothing.'" (from a great paragraph I wish I could quote in its entirety—400 characters is too short!)
Dec 28, 2025 10:25AM Add a comment
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is on page 135 of 1246 of The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
117: 'Men who saw in the bond between Robert Moses and Alfred Emanuel Smith a key to the shape in which the future of New York State and New York City unfolded... would wonder what had forged between the two men of independence and pride and ambition a tie so strong that, transcending independence and pride and ambition, it would be ended only by death.'

Ch 7 is such a great bio/hagiography of Al Smith
Dec 20, 2025 11:12AM Add a comment
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is on page 51 of 1246 of The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
p 41: 'In literature his greatest enthusiasm was for Samuel Johnson. ... The assigned reading included excerpts from Boswell's biography of Johnson; Moses read the book complete'

A man after my own heart.
Dec 14, 2025 07:23PM Add a comment
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is on page 349 of 522 of City of Ambition: FDR, LaGuardia, and the Making of Modern New York
346: "In advance of the Jewish high holidays in 1943, [Department of Markets] workers created an exhibition in the Essex Street municipal market to demonstrate to Lower East Side housewives how less expensive saltwater fish could be used in place of the usual freshwater yellow pike and carp to prepare gefilte fish."
Nov 30, 2025 09:56AM Add a comment
City of Ambition: FDR, LaGuardia, and the Making of Modern New York

Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is on page 250 of 522 of City of Ambition: FDR, LaGuardia, and the Making of Modern New York
244: "Roosevelt and La Guardia did possess outstanding personal qualities. But this does not fully account for how they came to loom so large in the public life of the nation and the city. ...Roosevelt and La Guardia acquired charisma because events rendered them capable of accomplishing governmental feats that seemed beyond the ability of ordinary mortals."
Nov 27, 2025 11:16AM Add a comment
City of Ambition: FDR, LaGuardia, and the Making of Modern New York

Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is on page 215 of 522 of City of Ambition: FDR, LaGuardia, and the Making of Modern New York
201: "Roosevelt had initially conceived [of the Federal One projects] simply as a way to create jobs for a set of particularly hard-hit occupational groups: artists 'have to live,' he remarked; 'I guess the only thing they can do is paint and surely there must be some public place where paintings are wanted.'"
Nov 25, 2025 08:56AM Add a comment
City of Ambition: FDR, LaGuardia, and the Making of Modern New York

Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is on page 125 of 522 of City of Ambition: FDR, LaGuardia, and the Making of Modern New York
125: "Too often life in New York is merely a squalid succession of days," [La Guardia] said in one campaign speech, "whereas in fact it can be a great, living, thrilling adventure."

Didn't know this was what Eric Adams was riffing on when he said this: https://youtu.be/wSq9SJzSRUA?si=vVatz...
Nov 19, 2025 10:13AM Add a comment
City of Ambition: FDR, LaGuardia, and the Making of Modern New York

Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is on page 200 of 307 of The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire
176: One newspaper endorsed McKinley with an editorial headlined THE NATION'S CHOICE–OF EVILS. Benjamin Harrison, the most recent Republican president, refused to endorse McKinley, leading newspapers to note his "masterly inactivity" and "brilliant flashes of silence." Grover Cleveland went duck hunting rather than vote, muttering before he set out, "Bryanism and McKinleyism! What a choice for a patriotic American!"
Nov 05, 2025 08:04PM Add a comment
The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire

Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is on page 50 of 307 of The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire
p 36: 'Cynics growled that [Senator Redfield] Proctor, who owned quarries in Vermont, was encouraging American intervention in Cuba to increase the market for gravestones.'
Oct 31, 2025 09:35AM Add a comment
The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire

Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is on page 200 of 388 of The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945
"...there was no Nazi coup d'etat. Instead, there was a series of quasi-legal actions ... no one of which by itself constituted a revolution, but the sum of which transformed Germany from a republic to a dictatorship. The problem was where to draw the line. But by the time the line could be clearly drawn, the revolution was a fait accompli, ... and organized resistance was no longer possible." 191
Oct 13, 2025 01:08PM 2 comments
The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945

Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is on page 135 of 167 of The Emperor's Tomb (Von Trotta Family, #2)
'At that instant she attained for me an almost preternatural grandeur, moved into a different century, the epoch of a long-gone heroical nobility. Because to conceal and to deny frailty can only be heroic.' (134-5)
May 26, 2025 12:01PM Add a comment
The Emperor's Tomb (Von Trotta Family, #2)

Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is on page 18 of 167 of The Emperor's Tomb (Von Trotta Family, #2)
'"...as far as Austria-Hungary is concerned, the ostensibly peculiar is perfectly natural. It's only in this crazy Europe of nation-states and nationalists that the natural looks peculiar. ... You won't find Austria in the Alps – chamois, yes, and edelweiss and gentians but barely a hint of the double-headed eagle. The substance of Austria is drawn and replenished from the Crown Lands."' (16)
Apr 29, 2025 07:50AM Add a comment
The Emperor's Tomb (Von Trotta Family, #2)

Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is 78% done with The Leopard
'the most moving sight there, two young people in love dancing together, blind to each other's defects, deaf to the warnings of fate, deluding themselves, ... Don Fabrizio felt his heart thaw; his disgust gave way to compassion for all these ephemeral beings out to enjoy the tiny ray of light granted them between two shades, before the cradle, after the last spasms.' (172)

Between Two Shades – good name for a novel
Apr 15, 2025 03:37PM Add a comment
The Leopard

Ben Weinstein
Ben Weinstein is 70% done with The Leopard
'If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.' (19)

'Their wanderings through the seemingly limitless building were interminable... The two lovers embarked for Cythera on a ship made of dark and sunny rooms, of apartments sumptuous or squalid, empty or crammed with remains of heterogenous furniture.' (118)

Curious how the film handles the paintings that make up so much of the novel's imagery.
Apr 15, 2025 03:58AM Add a comment
The Leopard

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