Michael Korda

“My father fought on the side of the Central Powers, as a soldier in the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Army, my maternal grandfather fought in the British Army, on different sides, and both were so traumatized by the experience that they never talked about it.”

“We, in America and Great Britain, have never had to live with evil and ignore it, or pretend it wasn't happening, as people did all over Europe, and indeed, even in Germany herself.”

“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.”

“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.”

“It is not necessary to agree with the Arab point of view about their own history, but it is foolish to ignore it.”

“My books are based on observing others, not myself.”

“The real fans do not just admire the star of their choice, they identify with him or her, while the star, unlike Joan Crawford, comes to need the fans' love, admiration, and constant interest.”

“Those of us who have not had the experience of being invaded by the Germans are in no position to criticize those who accommodated themselves to German occupation, with its ferocious punishments for those who expressed even the mildest opposition.”

“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.”

“For a book publisher, there is hardly a more dangerous category than that of celebrity autobiography. Forget who it's by, most books of this kind not only fail but fail big, since they are invariably expensive.”

“It's one thing to be writing in South or Latin America, where, except for Brazil, every country, however small and hard to find on a map, speaks Spanish, but quite another to be writing in, say, Hungary, a landlocked nation of 10 million people, with a language that very few people outside Hungary can read or speak.”

“In 'Gran Torino,' Eastwood moves towards the climax of the movie not by staging a shoot-out, but by putting his weapons to one side and confronting the bad guys armed only with a cigarette lighter, guessing that as he reaches for it they will think he's drawing a pistol.”

“Surrounded by high-paid publicity people and professional ego massagers, movie stars, like politicians, almost invariably come to believe that they are nicer, more charming, and more beloved than they appear to be to a casual observer, and that their stories about their careers are universally fascinating.”

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

“While politicians may be forgiven for failing to predict the future - who can, alas? - it is amazing that they defiantly ignore the past.”

“Nobody could emerge from a childhood at MGM unscathed.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The purely agitation attitude is not good enough for a detailed consideration of a subject.”

“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!”