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" It is hard to celebrate the past in an ecumenical way, or even in a fair-minded one, apparently. The trouble with the past is not just that it's behind us, it's that it is not even over yet. "

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" The rich and famous expect to get a lot for their story, whether they are writing it themselves or not. It's not that they need the money, of course; it's a question of ego, like catching the biggest fish. "

Michael Korda

Money

Ego

Famous

" The studio moguls were certainly bigger-than-life figures, but they were also tough and unforgiving street fighters to a man, redeemed only because they were also the butt of so many Hollywood jokes. "

" Most biographers are apt to be discouraged by the sheer volume of papers left behind by their subject. "

" Hebron is a bone of contention between Israeli settlers and the Palestinians in part because Abraham is buried there, in the Tomb of the Patriarchs. "

" The more you can dream, the more you can do. "

" When the Second World War came to an end in Europe, my uncle Sir Alexander Korda was the first filmmaker to reopen offices in Germany and Austria. "

" The biggest fool in the world is he who merely does his work supremely well, without attending to appearance. "

" The normal reaction of a publisher when faced with an author with a bee in his bonnet is to grab the check and run. "

" Of course the rich and famous tend to have more going on in their lives than ordinary people, but they aren't always willing to tell the interesting bits. "

" My own aunt was Merle Oberon, so movie stardom was not a faraway mystery to me as a child: it was part of the family business. "

Michael Korda

Mystery

Family

" My father fought on the side of the Central Powers, as a soldier in the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Army, my maternal grandfather fought in the British Army, on different sides, and both were so traumatized by the experience that they never talked about it. "

" Chanel took women out of corsets and put them into the 'simple little black dress,' the perfectly tailored suit, the bell-bottom sailor pants, and jersey tops. "

" Nobody understood how to use television for his own purposes better than Nixon, despite his poor showing against John F. Kennedy in the televised presidential debate. "

" The real fans do not just admire the star of their choice, they identify with him or her, while the star, unlike Joan Crawford, comes to need the fans' love, admiration, and constant interest. "

" Success was always critical to me. What it meant was winning enough praise and external admiration that I could feel myself to be a logical extension of my Uncle Alex, Uncle Zoli, and my father, in that order. "

" I find that nonfiction writers are the likeliest to turn out interesting novels. "

" Curiosity is the best motive for writing: curiosity about the world at large, or about oneself. "

" My books are based on observing others, not myself. "

" I attended first a military academy, then a public school in Beverly Hills, where we lived, and many of my classmates were the children of movie stars and studio executives. "

" I'm a relatively unfocused person. "

Michael Korda

Person

Relatively

" In my experience, with very few exceptions - I am, as it happens, one of the exceptions - the one thing that most editors don't want to do is edit. It's not nearly as conducive to a successful career as having lunch out with important agents or going to meetings where you get noticed. "

" In 'Gran Torino,' Eastwood moves towards the climax of the movie not by staging a shoot-out, but by putting his weapons to one side and confronting the bad guys armed only with a cigarette lighter, guessing that as he reaches for it they will think he's drawing a pistol. "

" The freedom to fail is vital if you're going to succeed. Most successful people fail from time to time, and it is a measure of their strength that failure merely propels them into some new attempt at success. "

" From time to time, one imagined Bill Clinton had charisma, but it never really was more than an occasional false glare. "

" The huge, turgid work of history, sinking under the weight of its own 'politically correct' thesis and its foot- and source notes, is not the British way of writing history, and never has been. "

" The first thing to be said about 'Prague Winter,' former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's new book, is that she very wisely chooses to confront early on in it her apparent surprise at learning late in life that she was born Jewish. "

" It's not a field, I think, for people who need to have success every day: if you can't live with a nightly sort of disaster, you should get out. I wouldn't describe myself as lacking in confidence, but I would just say that the ghosts you chase you never catch. "

" It strikes me that people want to be engaged, and that those who go into a bookstore in a time of crisis are much more likely to be looking for explanation than for escapism. "

" The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you're playing by somebody else's rules, while quietly playing by your own. "

" The novelist wants to know how things will turn out; the historian already knows how things turned out, but wants to know why they turned out the way they did. "