It is not necessary to agree with the Arab point of view about their own history, but it is foolish to ignore it. Michael Korda Read Quote
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 Read Quote
Peter Fleming was a famous English traveler, explorer and adventurer, whose non-fiction books were hugely successful. My father owned signed copies of all of them – he and Peter Fleming had become acquainted over some detail of set design at the Korda film studio in Shepperton – and I had read each of them with breathless adolescent excitement. Michael Korda Read Quote
Few things are more painful than being a successful writer born in a small country with an impenetrable language. Michael Korda Read Quote
T. E. Lawrence was far more than a glamorous, swashbuckling, heroic figure in flowing robes mounted on a camel, leading the Arab tribes against the Turks in World War One. Michael Korda Read Quote
I find that nonfiction writers are the likeliest to turn out interesting novels. Michael Korda Read Quote
The huge, turgid work of history, sinking under the weight of its own ‘politically correct’ thesis and its foot- and source notes, is not the British way of writing history, and never has been. Michael Korda Read Quote
Prime ministers come and go, but so long as he or she lives, the sovereign remains, receiving and reading all state papers and meeting once a week with the prime minister to advise, enquire, and comment – sometimes sharply, as was the case with Queen Elizabeth II and Mrs. Thatcher – on affairs of state. Michael Korda Read Quote
The normal reaction of a publisher when faced with an author with a bee in his bonnet is to grab the check and run. Michael Korda Read Quote
While politicians may be forgiven for failing to predict the future – who can, alas? – it is amazing that they defiantly ignore the past. Michael Korda Read Quote
