Michael Korda Quotes

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Michael Korda

Profession : Novelist

Birth : October 8, 1933

Citizens of Rome might boast that the claim of 'Civus romanus sum' set them apart from barbarians and slaves, and it was true up to a point, but Roman citizens lived in a society that accepted pain, cruelty, and torture as the norm, and in which there was no suggestion of equality at birth or mercy in the afterlife.

Michael Korda

I'm a relatively unfocused person.

Michael Korda

I'd fought in the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, having left Oxford to do so.

Michael Korda

Nothing in the Middle East is ever forgotten or forgiven.

Michael Korda

When my elders mentioned 'The War,' they invariably meant that of 1914-1918, even after 1939, for the Second World War was merely the continuation of the first, 'an armistice of 20 years,' as Marshal Foch had accurately predicted at the Versailles Peace Conference, with some changes of side.

Michael Korda

In Britain and Europe, no event is less forgotten than World War I, or 'The Great War,' as it was called until 1939.

Michael Korda

Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action for all eternity.

Michael Korda

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

Michael Korda

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

Michael Korda

What you hear repeatedly you will eventually believe.

Michael Korda

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.

Michael Korda

This is true enough, but success is the next best thing to happiness, and if you can't be happy as a success, it's very unlikely that you would find a deeper, truer happiness in failure.

Michael Korda

Men naturally resent it when women take greater liberties in dress than men are allowed.

Michael Korda

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

Luck can often mean simply taking advantage of a situation at the right moment. It is possible to make your luck by being always prepared.

Michael Korda

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

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

Numbers of sales do not correspond to numbers of readers.

Michael Korda

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

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