An essential element for good writing is a good ear: One must listen to the sound of one's own prose.

No nation in the world has so many drastic problems squeezed into so small a space, under such urgent pressure of time and heavy burden of history, as Israel.

War is the unfolding of miscalculations.

To rush in upon an event before its significance has had time to separate from the surrounding circumstances may be enterprising, but is it useful? ... The recent prevalence of these hot histories on publishers' lists raises the question: Should - or perhaps can - history be written while it is still smoking?

Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip.

Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot.

The writer's object is - or should be - to hold the reader's attention.