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9b3a14b
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Americans talked about voters the same way Russians talked about Stalin. They had to be obeyed.
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leadership
statesmanship
popularity
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Ken Follett |
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13b04d0
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A white American can orbit the earth, but a black American can't enter a restroom.
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Ken Follett |
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6face65
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Your integrity is like a sword, he would say: you shouldn't wave it until you're about to put it to the test.
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ken-follett
world-without-end
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Ken Follett |
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e4f9a9c
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The first casualty of a civil war was justice, Philip had realized.
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war
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Ken Follett |
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db409ee
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If it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive.
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Ken Follett |
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da8264c
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Erik was one of those inadequate people who were so scared by life that they preferred to live under harsh authority, to be told what to do and what to think by a government that allowed no dissent. They were foolish and dangerous, but there were an awful lot of them.
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Ken Follett |
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2bbbaaf
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Marvelous, isn't it, how these Germans can shoot back at us even when they're fucking dead.
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war
humor
ww1
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Ken Follett |
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ee6349b
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The small boys came early to the hanging.
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Ken Follett |
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47f515b
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You don't give up on democracy every time you lose a vote", Ethel said crisply."
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winter-of-the-world
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Ken Follett |
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5fea01a
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His aim was the glory of God, but the glory of Philip pleased him too.
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Ken Follett |
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fa96eea
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He was seething inside with a new emotion. Nothing seemed very important anymore except the Princess. He was single-minded about her. He was enchanted. He was possessed. He was in love.
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Ken Follett |
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675c0e5
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How terrible, Jack thought, to be old and know that your life has been wasted.
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lifes-work
old-age
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Ken Follett |
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37a15ae
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He was looking forward eagerly to seeing her again. He had coped perfectly well on his own, of course, but it was very reassuring to have someone in your life who was always ready to fight for you, and he had missed that comforting feeling,
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Ken Follett |
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ed7b611
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When I'm brave and strong, and care for children and the sick and the poor, I become a better person. And when I'm cruel, cowardly, or tell lies, or get drunk, I turn into someone less worthy, and I can't respect myself. That's the divine retribution I believe in
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self-respect
sin
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Ken Follett |
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028a7b0
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Mam kissed Ethel and said: "I'm glad to see you settled at last, anyway," That word ANYWAY carried a lot of baggage, Ethel thought. It meant: "Congratulations, even though you're a fallen woman, and you've got an illegitmate child whose father no one knows, and you're marrying a Jew, and living in London, which is the same as Sodom and Gomorrah." But Ethel accepted Mam's qualified blessing and vowed never to say such things to her own child..
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Ken Follett |
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b5baa60
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The trouble with being inspired to perform the impossible was that the inspiration gave you no clues to the practical means.
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Ken Follett |
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58768f5
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She had believed that love was something she could bestow upon whomever she liked, and that her main responsibility was to choose cleverly.
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Ken Follett |
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9fe6cca
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He was like a man who has got used to drinking the finest wine, and now finds that everyday wine thats like vinegar.
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comparison
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Ken Follett |
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481d38b
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Jack was too absorbed in his work to hear the bell. He was mesmerized by the challenge of making soft, round shapes of hard rock. The stone had a will of its own, and if he tried to make it do something it did not want to do, it would fight him, and his chisel would slip, or dig in too deeply, spoiling the shapes. But once he had got to know the lump of rock in front of him he could transform it. The more difficult the task, the more fascin..
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artist
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Ken Follett |
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9e15cfd
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Que Dios nos libre de los hombres con un destino dictado por la voluntad divina
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Ken Follett |
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de234d1
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But her angry feminism had set as hard as concrete during years of living alongside the tough, hardworking, dirt-poor women of London's East End. Men often told a fairy tale in which there was a division of labor in families, the man going out to earn money, the woman looking after home and children. Reality was different. Most of the women Ethel knew worked twelve hours a day and looked after home and children as well. Underfed, overworked..
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Ken Follett |
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3a5b5b6
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This is amazing," Volodya said. "He's the President, yet he has to make excuses all the time for what he does!" "Something like that," Woody said. "We call it democracy."
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winter-of-the-world
woody-dewar
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Ken Follett |
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2221d41
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She was dressed in white, and her tunic had amazing flared sleeves which trailed on the ground behind her as she glided down the stairs. Her hair was a mass of dark curls tumbling around her face, and she had dark, dark eyes. Jack realized that this was what the chansons meant when they referred to a beautiful princess in a castle. No wonder the knights all wept when the princess died.
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beauty
princess
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Ken Follett |
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7fdc265
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You're the one who doesn't understand," Lev said. "In America, I have my own car. There's more food than you can eat, all the booze I want, all the cigarettes I can smoke. I have five suits!" "What's the point in having five suits?" Grigori said in frustration. "It's like having five beds. You can only use one at a time!"
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Ken Follett |
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f2b923c
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I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. 'I have a dream that one day, on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down to gether at the table of brotherhood - I have a dream. 'That one day even the state of Mississippi - a state sweltering with th..
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Ken Follett |
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c639143
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I went to the doctor," said the woman next to Ethel. "I said to him, 'I've got an itchy twat.'" [...] She went on: "The doctor says to me, he goes, 'You shouldn't say that, it's a rude word.'" [...] "I says to him, 'What should I say, then, doctor?' He says to me, 'Say you've got an itchy finger.'" [...] "He says to me, 'Do your finger itch you all the time, Mrs. Perkins, or just now and again?'" Mildred paused, and the women were silent, ..
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humor
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Ken Follett |
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dcf75fa
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A German attack on Russia's ally France would, in reality, be defensive--but the English talked as if Germany was trying to dominate Europe.
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Ken Follett |
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f66733b
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The heart is a map of the world, did you know that?" "I don't even know what it means," he said. "I saw a medieval map once. It showed the earth as a flat disc with Jerusalem in the center. Rome was bigger than Africa, and America was not even shown, of course. The heart is that kind of map. The self is in the middle and everything else is out of proportion. You draw the friends of your youth large, then later it's impossible to rescale the..
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Ken Follett |
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194464b
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You didn't ask for a priest." "Whether I've been good or bad, I don't think God will be fooled by a last-minute change of heart."
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Ken Follett |
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346ce20
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All birds and men are sure to die but songs may live forever.
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Ken Follett |
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524d935
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It was said that pilgrims should not spend too much time planning their journey, for they might learn of so many hazards that they would decide not to go.
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Ken Follett |
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c0cbe0c
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Don't worry. We who are born poor have to use cunning to get what we want. Scruples are for the privileged." She"
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Ken Follett |
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147ed77
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He did not really understand the game they were playing: in his world, the best way to get something was to deserve it, not to toady to the giver.
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politics
work
reward
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Ken Follett |
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207c72a
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Men were the only animals that slaughtered their own kind by the million, and turned the landscape into a waste of shell craters and barbed wire. Perhaps the human race would wipe itself out completely, and leave the world to the birds and trees, Walter thought apocalyptically. Perhaps that would be for the best.
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Ken Follett |
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911ca11
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A person who breaks a promise diminishes herself. It's like losing a finger. It's worse than being paralyzed, which is merely physical. Someone whose promises are worthless has a disabled soul.
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Ken Follett |
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60c69f4
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Lenin's idea of relaxation was to sit down with a foreign-language dictionary for an hour or two.
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Ken Follett |
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f8fdf65
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It was unladylike even to know the name of your lawyer, let alone to understand your rights under the law. No wonder women were mercilessly exploited.
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Ken Follett |
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932b119
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She was wilful, maddening, quarrelsome and intolerant, but somehow these things were trifling: there was a passion inside her that burned like a candle in a lantern, and it lit up his life.
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Ken Follett |
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40363bf
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man thought he could fly, so he jumped off the top of a ten-story building, and as he fell past the fifth floor, flapping his arms uselessly in the air, he was heard to say: 'So far, so good.
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Ken Follett |
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bb7fb01
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He believed in Communism the way most people believed in God: he would not be greatly surprised or disappointed if he turned out to be wrong, and meanwhile it made little difference to the way he lived.
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Ken Follett |
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ad35910
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He was looking forward to letting Joanne know, in a casual way, that he had read these books.
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Ken Follett |
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ebb5ea1
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We will have to repent, in this generation, not merely for the hateful words and actions of bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good,' King said,
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Ken Follett |
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ac46814
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When you were trying to enforce law and order, it was difficult to explain that the rules did not actually apply to you personally.
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Ken Follett |
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53959c5
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After the Battle of Midway it was clear that the Pacific war would be won by planes launched from ships. Both Japan and the United States began crash programs to build aircraft carriers as fast as possible. During 1943 and 1944, Japan produced seven of these huge, costly vessels. In the same period, the United States produced ninety.
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Ken Follett |