Follett Quotes & Sayings

She was unique: there was something abnormal about her, and it was that abnormal something that made her magnetic. — Ken Follett

Your aunt Rose is dying," Petranilla said as soon as he was close. "May God bless her soul. Mother Cecilia told me." "You look shocked - but you know how ill she is." "It's not Aunt Rose. I've had other bad news." He swallowed. "I can't go to Oxford. — Ken Follett

Trusting someone was like holding a little water in your cupped hands - it was so easy to spill the water, and you could never get it back. — Ken Follett

There is a real connection between Philosopy and fiction. — Ken Follett

We all now tell stories by cutting from one dramatic scene to the next, whereas Victorian novelists felt free to write long passages of undramatic summary. — Ken Follett

American newspaper?" "The Tribune, general." Dornberger — James Follett

the Germans have got to be stopped. They think they're entitled to rule the world!" Da said: "We're British. Our empire holds sway over more than four hundred million people. Hardly any of them are entitled to vote. They have no control over their own countries. Ask the average British man why, and he'll say it's our destiny to govern inferior peoples. — Ken Follett

They were taught about democracy in London, not about tyranny in Cairo. — Ken Follett

Not even a cat was out. The rain surged down with a steady drone. It meant to harm New York and everyone there. The gutters could not contain it. Long ago they had despaired of the job and surrendered. But the rain paid no attention to them ... New York people never lived in houses or even in burrows. They inhabited cells in stone cliffs. They timed the cooking of their eggs by the nearest traffic light. If the light went wrong, so did the eggs ... — Barbara Newhall Follett

Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Differences must be integrated, not annihilated, not absorbed. — Mary Parker Follett

In both cases, weakness and scruples had defeated strength and ruthlessness. — Ken Follett

You'd be surprised. Look, most Republicans are decent men who simply have a view of the world that is different from ours. But there is a hard core of fucking nutcases. — Ken Follett

What people often mean by getting rid of conflict is getting rid of diversity, and it is of the utmost importance that these should not be considered the same. — Mary Parker Follett

The insight to see possible new paths, the courage to try them, the judgment to measure results - these are the qualities of a leader. — Mary Parker Follett

Nor would he care what the target was. If they bombed Chile, it would be the same as bombing New York. — Ken Follett

A country is mostly the people in it," Maud said. "I don't love England. My parents died a long time ago, and my brother has disowned me. I love Germany. For me, Germany is my wonderful husband, Walter; my misguided son, Erik; my alarmingly capable daughter, Carla; our maid, Ada, and her disabled son; my friend Monika and her family; my journalistic colleagues . . . I'm staying, to fight the Nazis. — Ken Follett

My favorite period is World War II, and I'm in the middle of writing my fourth novel set in that era. — Ken Follett

If we're all aggressive, obedient solders [sic], who's going to write the poems and play the blues and go on anti-war protest marches? — Ken Follett

Leadership is not defined by the exercise of power but by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led. The most essential work of the leader is to create more leaders. — Mary Parker Follett

I do not think that we have psychological and ethical and economic problems. We have human problems, with psychological, ethical and economical aspects, and as many others as you like. — Mary Parker Follett

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. — Ken Follett

Why do you have to be the same as the others? ... Most of them are stupid. — Ken Follett

I've never told anyone about that letter," he said quietly. "I know," Thomas replied. "If you had, you'd be dead. — Ken Follett

There's nothing wrong with white people. They just ain't black. — Ken Follett

just as the Monroe Doctrine gave the same rights to the USA in South America. — Ken Follett

Well, for people who want to write best sellers, the best advice I can give is to say that the novel has to engage the reader emotionally. — Ken Follett

You mean there isn't an indisputable book that is the actual Word of God? Men argue about it and make a judgment? — Ken Follett

Looking in the full-length mirror, she thought, I've got everything I had twenty years ago - it's all just three inches lower. — Ken Follett

Why did people manufacture trouble when there was already so much of it in the world? — Ken Follett

I could fall for you in a heartbeat — Ken Follett

They did not suspect her for a moment. It did not occur to them that a woman could be dangerous. How foolish they were. Women could do most of the things men did. Who was left in charge when the men were fighting wars, or going on crusades? There were women carpenters, dyers, tanners, bakers and brewers. — Ken Follett

A fatal defect in majority rule is that by its very nature it abolishes itself. Majority rule must inevitably become minority rule: the majority is too big to handle itself; it organizes itself into committees ... which in their turn resolve themselves into a committee of one ... — Mary Parker Follett

We're all idealists," said Lord Silverman, smoothing over the conflict like a good host. "That's why we're in politics. People without ideals don't bother. But we have to confront the realities of elections and public opinion. — Ken Follett

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. — Ken Follett

If you wish to train yourself for higher executive positions, the first thing for you to decide is what you are training for. Ability to dominate or manipulate others? That ought to be easy enough, since most of the magazines advertise sure ways of developing something they call 'personality.' But I am convinced that the first essential of business success is the capacity for organized thinking. — Mary Parker Follett

To him, money was like the toy bank notes in Monopoly: he wanted it, not for what it could buy, but because it was needed to play the game — Ken Follett

Part of the task of the leader is to make others participate in his leadership. The best leader knows how to make his followers actually feel power themselves, not merely acknowledge his power. — Mary Parker Follett

Walli's sister came into the room. Lili was almost three years younger, and these days he was not sure how to treat her. For as long as he could remember she had been a pain in the neck, like a younger boy but sillier. However, lately she had become more sensible and, to complicate matters, some of her friends had breasts. — Ken Follett

Grigori had become good at that, and in consequence had won the loyalty of his platoon. — Ken Follett

A man hates the person he has wronged, paradoxically. I think it's because the victim is a perpetual reminder that he behaved shamefully. — Ken Follett

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 — Ken Follett

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, living in hovels, and dressed in rags, they could still sing songs and laugh and love their children. In Ethel's view one of those women had more right to vote than any ten men. — Ken Follett

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. — Ken Follett

World War II is the greatest drama in human history, the biggest war ever and a true battle of good and evil. I imagine writers will continue to get stories from it, and readers will continue to love them, for many more years. — Ken Follett

In every country, those who were against war had been overruled. The Austrians had attacked Serbia when they might have held back; the Russians had mobilized instead of negotiating; the Germans had refused to attend an international conference to settle the issue; the French had been offered the chance to remain neutral and had spurned it; and now the British were about to join in when they might easily have remained on the sidelines. — Ken Follett

She loved his seriousness. Most men, even quite clever ones, became silly when they talked to women. Walter spoke to her just as intelligently as he spoke to Robert or Fitz, and - even more unusually - he listened to her answers. — Ken Follett

It looked, she thought, as if the hand of God had come down over England and struck the earth, destroying everything men had made except churches. — Ken Follett

Ishmael was looking at him through narrowed eyes. "This is very important to you, this box."
"It's important to the world."
Ishmael said: "The sun rises, and the sun sets. Sometimes it rains. We live, then we die." He shrugged.
He would never understand, Wolff thought; but others would. — Ken Follett

We have thought of peace as passive and war as the active way of living. The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest cure compared to the task of reconciling our differences ... From War to Peace is not from the strenuous to the easy existence; it is from the futile to the effective, from the stagnant to the active, from the destructive to the creative way of life ... The world will be regenerated by the people who rise above these passive ways and heroically seek, by whatever hardship, by whatever toil, the methods by which people can agree. — Mary Parker Follett

Nevertheless, the book gave Jack a feeling he had never had before, that the past was like a story, in which one thing led to another, and the world was not a boundless mystery, but a finite thing that could be comprehended. — Ken Follett

Democracy is not brute numbers; it is a genuine union of true individuals ... the essence of democracy is creating. The technique of democracy is group organization. — Mary Parker Follett

The knowledge that someone was trying his best to kill you was overwhelmingly oppressive, — Ken Follett

Communists in power would be as oppressive as the aristocracy they replaced. — Ken Follett

The most successful leader of all is the one who sees another picture not yet actualized. He sees the things which are not yet there ... Above all, he should make his co-workers see that it is not his purpose which is to be achieved, but a common purpose, born of the desires and the activities of the group. — Mary Parker Follett

She read a short report in The Times datelined Vienna and headed THE SERVIAN SCARE. She asked Bea if Russia would defend Serbia against the Austrians. "I hope not!" Bea said, alarmed. "I don't want my brother to go to war." Maud — Ken Follett

There's a saying: 'If you owe a hundred dollars, the bank has you in its power; but if you owe a million dollars, you have the bank in your power. — Ken Follett

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, — Ken Follett

Ethel said: "Lloyd, there's someone here you may remember-"
Daisy could not restrain herself. She ran to Lloyd and threw herself into his arms. She hugged him. She looked into his green eyes, then kissed his brown cheeks and his broken nose and then his mouth. "I love you, Lloyd," she sad madly. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
"I love you, too, Daisy," he said.
Behind her, Daisy heard Ethel's wry voice. "You do remember, I see. — Ken Follett

We often tend to think that the executive wishes to maintain standard, wishes to reach a certain quality of production, and that the worker has to be goaded in some way to do this. Again and again we forget that the worker is often, usually I think, equally interested, that his greatest pleasure in his work comes from the satisfaction of worthwhile accomplishment, of having done the best of which he was capable. — Mary Parker Follett

I use a professional researcher in New York who does all the legwork, all that stuff which would take me days and weeks of calling, waiting for people to call back. — Ken Follett

When I'm writing a woman character, I don't think, 'What would a woman do?' I just think, 'What would this character do in this situation?' — Ken Follett

If we lose the war, our creditors - mainly Americans - will go bankrupt. And if we win, we'll make the Germans pay. 'Reparations' is the word they use." "How will they manage it?" "They will starve. But nobody cares what happens to the losers. Anyway, the Germans did the same to the French in 1871." He stood up and put his cup in the kitchen sink. "So you see why we can't make peace with Germany. Who then would pay the bill?" Ethel was aghast. "And so we have to keep sending boys to die in the trenches. Because we can't pay the bill. Poor Billy. What a wicked world we live in." "But — Ken Follett

If I've learned one thing in Spain, it's that we have to fight the Communists just as hard as the Fascists. They're both evil. — Ken Follett

While leadership depends on depth of conviction and the power coming therefrom, there must also be the ability to share that conviction with others. — Mary Parker Follett

But everyone had to die, and Father had given his life for the sake of a better world. If more Germans had had his courage the Nazis would not have triumphed. She wanted to do all the things he had done: to raise her children well, to make a difference to her country's politics, to love and be loved. Most of all, when she died, she wanted her children to be able to say, as she said of her father, that her life had meant something, and that the world was a better place for it. — Ken Follett

But desperate people find courage. — Ken Follett

Hard work should be rewarded by good food. — Ken Follett

Benedict, but they say he doesn't set himself up on a pedestal. — Ken Follett

The world was changing so fast it was hard to keep up. Grigori had never been inside — Ken Follett

It had been a morning of vivid images: the man-made streams, the rats in the butchers' shops, the stacks of new-minted silver pennies, and then the woman's private parts. For a while, he knew, those pictures would come back to him to unsettle his meditations. — Ken Follett

Democracy is self-creating coherence. — Mary Parker Follett

Her breasts had changed, too. He remembered when they had stuck out from her chest as if they were weightless, the nipples pointing up. Then, when she was pregnant, they had become even bigger, and the nipples had grown larger. Now they were lower and softer, and they swung delightfully from side to side when she walked. He had loved them through all their changes. He wondered what they would be like when she was old. — Ken Follett

It did not occur to them that a woman could be dangerous. How foolish they were. — Ken Follett

We have thought of peace as the passive and war as the active way of living. The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest-cure compared to the task of reconciling our differences. — Mary Parker Follett

I've met the people who run Alabama. Believe me, they're not that smart. — Ken Follett

He had been granted his life's wish-but conditionally. — Ken Follett

Jack Reacher is a brilliant movie — Ken Follett

You can't write novels about people who are timid, risk-averse and passive. Or you can, but they're called literary novels. — Ken Follett

There is no point in asking a man a question until you have established whether he has any reason to lie to you. — Ken Follett

They have no tsar in America - no emperor or king of any kind. The army can't just shoot anyone they like. The people rule the country!" She — Ken Follett

He was the kind of man George had been fighting for a decade: an ugly, fat, foul-mouthed, stupid white racist. — Ken Follett

jaw. He examined his morning beard, pulling the loose skin this way — Ken Follett

Growing up is learning to deceive. — Ken Follett

Besides, he realized, he could not leave the house without a coat, not because of the rain - he did not mind getting wet - but because of the bulge in front of his clothing that would not subside. He — Ken Follett

Many people tell me what I ought to do and just how I ought to do it, but Few have made me want to do something.. — Mary Parker Follett

With the fascination of a condemned man watching the carpenter build the gallows. — Ken Follett

It is of equal importance with the discovery of facts to know what to do with them ... — Mary Parker Follett

Such disappointments, betrayals and reconciliations were the stuff of married life, but she and Jack had gone through them before the wedding. Now, at least, she felt confident that she knew him. Nothing was likely to surprise her. It was a funny way to do things, but it might be better than making your vows first and getting to know your spouse afterward. — Ken Follett

Just because someone asks you a question, don't you think you have to answer. — Ken Follett

The state accumulates moral power only through the spiritual activity of their citizens. — Mary Parker Follett

The atmosphere in Washington was different. President Reagan remained popular, despite having committed crimes far worse than those that had brought Nixon down: financing terrorism in Nicaragua, trading weapons for hostages with Iran, and turning women and girls into mangled corpses on the streets of Beirut. Reagan's collaborator Vice President George H. W. Bush looked likely to become the next president. Somehow - and Jasper could not figure out how this trick had been worked - people who challenged the president and caught him out cheating and lying were no longer heroes, as they had been in the seventies, but instead were considered disloyal and even anti-American. — Ken Follett

Prose is not necessarily good because it obeys the rules of syntax, but it is fairly certain to be bad if it ignores them. — Wilson Follett

He had never before thought of himself as gullible. He wondered where he had gone wrong. It occurred to him that he had let himself be overawed - by bishop Henry and his silk robes, by the magnificence of Winchester and its cathedral, by the piles of silver in the mint and the heaps of meat in the butchers' shops, and by the thought of seeing the king. He had forgotten that God saw through the silk robes to the sinful heart, that the only wealth worth having was treasure in heaven, and that the even the king had to kneel down in church. Feeling that everyone else was so much powerful and sophisticated than he was, he had lost sight of his true values, suspended his critical faculties, and places his trust in his superiors. — Ken Follett

When you're thinking, please remember this: excessive pride is a familiar sin, but a man may just as easily frustrate the will of God through excessive humility. — Ken Follett

Coercive power is the curse of the universe, coactive power, the enrichment and advancement of every human soul. — Mary Parker Follett

I want to tell a story that makes the reader always want to see what will happen next. — Ken Follett

1872 the anarchist leader Mikhail Bakunin warned Karl Marx that Communists in power would be as oppressive as the aristocracy they replaced. After what has happened in Russia, can you honestly say Bakunin was wrong? — Ken Follett

To someone standing in the nave, looking down the length of the church toward the east, the round window would seem like a huge sun exploding into innumerable shards of gorgeous color. — Ken Follett

He had heard that people who had the toes chopped off one foot could not stand up, but fell over constantly until they learned to walk again. He felt like that, as if part of him had been amputated, and he could not get used to the idea that it was gone forever. — Ken Follett

Our government doesn't necessarily agree with Wilson's Fourteen Points." Maud nodded. "I suppose we're against point five, about colonial peoples having a say in their own government." "Exactly. What about Rhodesia, and Barbados, and India? We can't be expected to ask the natives' permission before we civilize them. Americans are far too liberal. And we're dead against point two, freedom of the seas in war and peace. — Ken Follett