305 Quotes by Erik Larson

To do our work, we all have to read a mass of papers. While energy has to be spent in looking for the essential points.I ask my colleagues and their staffs to see to it that their reports are shorter.

It's all right to drill your crew, but why not drill the passengers.

There began to appear before my romantic eyes...a vast and complicated network of espionage, terror, sadism and hate, from which no one, official or private, could escape.

Nonetheless the man (Hitler) had a remarkable ability to transform himself into something far more compelling, especially when speaking in public or during private meetings when some topic enraged him. He had a knack as well for projecting an aura of sincerity that blinded onlookers to his true motives and beliefs..

People seemed to believe that technology had stripped hurricanes of their power to kill. No hurricane expert endorsed this view.

How easy it was to disappear: A thousand trains a day entered or left Chicago.

All I hope is that it is not too late... I am very much afraid that it is. But we can only do our best, and give the rest of what we have - whatever there may be left to us.

Another man packed a gold seal for stamping wax on the back of an envelope, with the Latin motto Tuta Tenebo, “I will keep you safe.

In this day before sonar, a submarine traveled utterly blind, trusting entirely in the accuracy of sea charts. One great fear of all U-boat men was that a half-sunk derelict or an uncharted rock might lie in their path.