I think to be shot in a mountain valley somewhere or other is altogether less glorious than crashing an airliner into a skyscraper.

I think Americans like the practical; they like the human. And I like both those things myself, and I try and put them into my books.

If Wellington epitomizes the English gentleman, Eisenhower epitomizes the natural American gentleman.

The historian ought to be an educated person, writing for other educated people about something which they don't know about, but wish to know about in a way that they can understand.

Slavery in the modern world implies the absolute deprivation of the individual's liberty, while possession of weapons and mastery of their use are means to the individual's liberation. We do not perceive how a man may be armed and at the same time bereft of his freedom.

The revival of Islam dates from the early years of the 20th century. It was brought about by their humiliation, by their sense of how low they'd fallen compared with the West.

The Islam of the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th century was a poor thing. Nobody bothered about it. Islam was that funny sort of pure system of beliefs that depressed people in the Middle East held as their religion.