Paul Hoffman

“The magic was in the Marshall Plan itself. It provided an opportunity for appealing and constructive work. In a sense, the mission chiefs were given the opportunity to help act as architects for the new Europe that was envisioned.”

“I have a message for your daughter,” said Cale. “I am bound to her with cables that not even God can break. One day, if there is a soft breeze on her cheek, it may be my breath; one night, if the cool wind plays with her hair, it may be my shadow passing by.” And with this terrible threat he faced forward and the procession started once more. In less than a minute they were gone. In her shady room Arbell Swan-Neck stood white and cold as alabaster.”

“...his soul (was) ringing like a well-struck bell. But it was a bell that rang with more than joy and adoration — there was the sound there too of anger and resentment. She would not look at him because she did not want to be in his presence. She hated him and he (how could he not?) hated her in return.”

“In its best prewar year, Europe with almost 300 million people had a gross national product of 150 billion dollars. In that same year, the United States with 150 million people had a gross national product of 300 billion dollars.”

“The heart of a man is a small thing but it desires great matters. It is not big enough for a dog’s dinner but the whole world is not big enough for it. Man spares nothing that lives; he kills to feed himself, he kills to clothe himself, he kills to adorn himself, he kills to attack, he kills to defend himself, he kills to instruct himself, he kills to amuse himself, he kills for the sake of killing. From the lamb he tears its guts and makes his harp resound; from the wolf his most deadly tooth to polish his pretty works of art; from the elephant his tusks to make a toy for his child.(...)And who will exterminate him who exterminates all others?”

“The Europeans had made two promises to the United States if Marshall Plan help was forthcoming. The first promise was maximum self-help on the part of every country; and second, maximum mutual aid.”

“It is not against reason, said the Englishman, to prefer the destruction of the world to a scratch on your finger – how much easier to understand the same price for the gash in your soul.”

“t was once famously said that it is as well that wars are so ruinously expensive, else we would never stop fighting them. However well said, it seems also to be endlessly forgotten that, while there may be just wars and unjust wars, there are never any cheap wars.”

“Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it as it is to its victims - the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is that nobody really possesses a great kind of power for long. Those who have it on loan from Fate count on it too much and are themselves destroyed.”

“There are times we are givers, but others time we have to let others give to us.”

“If he had listened to some of his advisors and had tried to make the Marshall Plan a political dumping ground for unqualified politicians, it couldn't have been a success.”