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" 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. "
Michael Korda
Turn
Will
Why
Related Quotes:
" It is not necessary to agree with the Arab point of view about their own history, but it is foolish to ignore it. "
Michael Korda
History
View
Ignore
" 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. "
Michael Korda
Simple
Women
Sailor
" One of the first rules of playing the power game is that all bad news must be accepted calmly, as if one already knew and didn't care. "
Michael Korda
Care
Game
News
" I never met Peter O'Toole, but he one was of those rare actors whose success was defined by a single role. His incandescent performance in David Lean's 'Lawrence of Arabia' is one that nobody who saw it will ever forget. "
Michael Korda
Success
Performance
Nobody
" 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
" If you don't believe in yourself, then who will believe in you? The next man's way of getting there might not necessarily work for me, so I have to create my own ways of getting there. "
Michael Korda
Work
Yourself
Believe In Yourself
" 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. "
Michael Korda
Want
Time
Crisis
" Prime ministers come and go, but so long as he or she lives, the sovereign remains, receiving and reading all state papers and meeting once a week with the prime minister to advise, enquire, and comment - sometimes sharply, as was the case with Queen Elizabeth II and Mrs. Thatcher - on affairs of state. "
Michael Korda
Long
Queen
Reading
" My father and his brothers never mentioned to their English wives and children that they were Jewish. Being Hungarian was exotic and foreign enough to begin with, and so long as they were not asked, they found it easier, from 1919 on, to let the matter drop. "
Michael Korda
Long
Matter
Children
" Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility... in the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have... is the ability to take on responsibility. "
Michael Korda
Responsibility
People
Success
" Many years ago, I had the pleasure of editing a book by Joan Crawford, who, like Norma Desmond, was still a big star; it was just the movies that had gotten smaller. "
Michael Korda
Book
Editing
Pleasure
" 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. "
Michael Korda
Way
Work
Own
" FDR had a certain charisma, at least in his first term, with the big grin, the cigarette holder at a jaunty angle, and the battered hat on his imposing head, but no other American president since then has had it except JFK - indeed, some of them have been positively anti-charismatic, like Gerald Ford, Carter, and the Bushes. "
Michael Korda
First
Big
Head
" I do not start with a full knowledge of the facts; the whole attraction of writing history is to educate myself: it is an exploration into the unknown - 'a journey without maps,' to borrow Graham Greene's phrase. "
Michael Korda
Journey
History
Knowledge
" 'Il faut vivre' might almost be the French national motto from 1940 to June 1944, but who is to say ours would have been any different if the Germans had paraded victoriously through London and Generalfeldmarschall Von Runstedt made his headquarters at Claridge's? "
Michael Korda
Say
Motto
London
" If your family was part of the movie business, then watching 'Moguls & Movie Stars' is like looking at the family photo album: hilarious to members of the family, numbingly boring to those outside the family circle. "
Michael Korda
Looking
Stars
Business
" Nobody could emerge from a childhood at MGM unscathed. "
Michael Korda
Emerge
Nobody
MGM
" Frost was no match for Nixon - far from being an intrepid and challenging interviewer, he was a pushover for the great and the famous, always deeply impressed with the fact that here he was, David Frost, putting questions to - Richard Nixon! "
Michael Korda
Famous
Here
Questions
" I am a stupendously fast reader and always have been. I can read in at least three languages fluently and two languages with a little bit more difficulty. "
Michael Korda
Two
Always
Fast
" In 1918, Germany suffered the ghastly consequences of defeat; France suffered those of victory, the price of which was to divide and embitter French politics and culture and lead to its defeat in 1940. "
Michael Korda
Lead
Politics
Victory
" While politicians may be forgiven for failing to predict the future - who can, alas? - it is amazing that they defiantly ignore the past. "
Michael Korda
Past
Amazing
Ignore
" In Eastern Europe, the past is not only always hovering over the present, it is not even passed. It waits, like some malevolent caged beast, ready at any moment to escape and bring back all the horrors. "
Michael Korda
Past
Escape
Beast
" When someone has spent a lifetime trying to survive a death sentence, the last thing you want is your children uncovering what you have been at such pains to conceal. "
Michael Korda
You
Someone
Death
" I'm always astonished when I go into Barnes & Noble at the number of people buying books, of course, but also at the variety of books they do buy and the extent to which they are not the big bestsellers. "
Michael Korda
People
Go
Always
" The purely agitation attitude is not good enough for a detailed consideration of a subject. "
Michael Korda
Attitude
Not Good Enough
Enough
" There are no French Puritans. "
Michael Korda
French
Puritans
" To be scrupulously honest, I only met Noel Coward twice in my life, and then briefly, but I heard so much about him at home when I was growing up that I always felt I knew him well. "
Michael Korda
Life
Growing Up
Growing
" The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you're playing by somebody else's rules, while quietly playing by your own. "
Michael Korda
Rules
You
Own
" Nixon knew exactly what he wanted to accomplish in his four interviews with David Frost, quite apart from having his agent Irving Paul Lazar negotiate a terrific deal for him, with cash up front. "
Michael Korda
Interviews
Him
Accomplish
" My books are based on observing others, not myself. "
Michael Korda
Others
Myself
Books