305 Quotes by Erik Larson

You wish you had not come. If there were not so many around, you would reach out your arms, with the prayer on your lips for it all to come back to you. It seems cruel, cruel, to give us such a vision; to let us dream and drift through heaven for six months, and then to take it out of our lives.

With the prospect of raids on London itself, U.S. ambassador Joseph Kennedy decamped. To the great disdain of many in London, he began conducting his ambassadorial affairs from his home in the country. Within the Foreign Office, a joke began to circulate: "I always thought my daffodils were yellow until I met Joe Kennedy.

American political discourse had framed the Jewish problem as an immigration problem. Germany's persecution of Jews raised the specter of a vast influx of Jewish refugees at a time when America was reeling from the Depression.

My between-books strategy was reading voraciously and on a whim.

[Churchill] stood. As he spoke, his voice shook and tears streamed. ‘In these days,’ he said, ‘I often think of Our Lord.’ He could say no more. He sat down and looked at no one – the great orator made speechless by the weight of the day. Cowles found herself deeply moved. ‘I have never forgotten those simple words and if he enjoyed waging the war let it be remembered that he understood the anguish of it as well.

It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root. This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history.

I must confess a shameful secret: I love Chicago best in the cold.

An artist, he paints with lakes and wooded slopes, with lawns and banks and forest-covered hills." — Daniel Burnham talking about Frederick Law Olmstead

New York's perennial attraction was shopping.