The writer learns to write, in the last resort, only by writing. He must get words onto paper even if he is dissatisfied with them.

The Second World War took place not so much because no one won the First, but because the Versailles Treaty did not acknowledge this truth.

A deliberate plan is not always necessary for the highest art; it emerges.

The urge to distribute wealth equally, and still more the belief that it can be brought about by political action, is the most dangerous of all popular emotions. It is the legitimation of envy, of all the deadly sins the one which a stable society based on consensus should fear the most. The monster state is a source of many evils; but it is, above all, an engine of envy.

The most evil person I ever met was a toss-up between Pablo Picasso and the publisher-crook Robert Maxwell.

The writer learns to write, in the last resort, only by writing. He must get words onto paper even if he is dissatisfied with them. A young writer must cross many psychological barriers to acquire confidence in his capacity to produce good work-especially his first full-length book-and he cannot do this by staring at a piece of blank paper, searching for the perfect sentence.

At some time in their careers, most good historians itch to write a history of the world, endeavor to discover what makes humanity the most destructive and creative of species.