William Churchill Quotes & Sayings

I worked hard and made my own way, just as my father had. And just, I'm sure, as he hoped I would. I learned, from observing him, the satisfaction that comes from striving and seeing a dream fulfilled. — Sigourney Weaver

In the November 1940 week of nightmares, when mighty German planes bombed London, British bombers retaliated by attacking Berlin, where the Soviet foreign minister, Molotov, was pressing Hitler for an answer to just exactly when German forces would invade the British Isles.

We had heard of the conference beforehand,' Churchill told Parliament, ' and, although not invited to join in the discussion, did not wish to be entirely left out of the proceedings. — William Stevenson

It made a romantic tale. The young rouge, cheating death, returning to his grieving lover. But in reality? Ashyn had always known life did not resemble one of her book stories or Moria's bard tales, and yet there was a part of her that hoped it did. The more she saw, the more she realized she was wrong. People made up stories because that is what they wanted from their world. A place where goodness, kindness, and honor were rewarded. They were not rewarded. The people of Edgewood could attest to that. - Sea Of Shadows — Kelly Armstrong

In many ways Churchill remained a nineteenth-century man, and by no means a common man. He fit the mold of what Henry James called in English Hours persons for whom the private machinery of ease has been made to work with extraordinary smoothness. — William Manchester

If you want something done, give it to someone who's busy! — Terry Pratchett

I've done two albums for Concord Records; one was with Al Jarreau and it did very well for us. The second album was called 'Songs And Stories,' and it had good songs and good performances, but I promised them I would do an album that was more jazz-oriented. — George Benson

In 1988, William Manchester began writing The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm, the third and final volume of his biography of Winston Churchill. — William Manchester

I might paraphrase Churchill and say: never have I received so much for so little.
[Exemplifying humility, upon accepting the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.] — Luis Federico Leloir

There are small blessings, tiny ones that come unbidden and make the hard day one sigh lighter. — Mira Jacob

Churchill had arrived in Persia secure in his nineteenth-century belief in England's imperial destiny; he left having learned a cold lesson. He now had no choice but to regard the status of his small island nation from a mid-twentieth-century vantage point, and it was one of declining geopolitical might. — William Manchester

Churchill, aware of Hitler's use of astrologers, once summoned one himself. In a what-the-hell moment, he asked the surprised fortune-teller to tell him what Hitler's fortune-teller was telling Hitler. Churchill told his friend Kay Halle the story years later with the caveat that this is just between us. — William Manchester

Actors who have tried to play Churchill and MacArthur have failed abysmally because each of those men was a great actor playing himself. — William Manchester

To me, my feelings and pride are important. Although I like you it's not enough to be used like that. — Kim Do-Jin

Responsibility is a tremendous engine in a free government. — Thomas Jefferson

But since we've been separated, I may most miss coming home to deliver the narrative curiosities of my day, the way
a cat might lay mice at your feet: the small, humble offerings that couples proffer after foraging in
separate backyards. — Lionel Shriver

A twenty-minute eulogy, unless composed by a) William Shakespeare, b) Winston Churchill, or c) Mark Twain, is sixteen minutes too long. Technical note: It is better to tell a eulogist to speak for four minutes not five minutes. "Five minutes" to the modern ear sounds like "around five minutes," whereas "four minutes" means "four minutes. — Christopher Buckley

Churchill warned them now: "When you are drifting down the stream of Niagara, it may easily happen that from time to time you run into a reach of quite smooth water, or that a bend in the river or a change in the wind may make the roar of the falls seem far more distant. But" - his voice dropped a register, and only those who strained could hear - "your hazard and your preoccupation are in no way affected thereby. — William Manchester

Every medium - oral, written, print, and now electronic - has its own associated thought patterns and mind sets. — Dale Spender

You can survive any situation with strength of spirit and soul. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I've always been aware of both how extraordinarily normal and how extraordinarily extraordinary my life has been. It's always been important, first to my parents when I was younger, and now very much to me, to live in the world. I would never want to live in a cloister. — Chelsea Clinton

Winston Churchill once quipped, "The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." He went on to say, "I am an optimist. It does not seem much use being anything else. — William Ury

It meant good-bye to London and to Churchill, whose company Harriman thoroughly enjoyed, and to Pamela, whose bed he enjoyed (the lovers' hiatus lasted almost three decades, until 1971, when Pamela Beryl Digby Churchill Hayward became the third Mrs. Harriman). — William Manchester

Adlai Stevenson, himself a notable speaker, often reminisced about his last meeting with Churchill. I asked him on whom or what he had based his oratorical style. Churchill replied, "It was an American statesman who inspired me and taught me how to use every note of the human voice like an organ." Winston then to my amazement started to quote long excerpts from Bourke Cockran's speeches of 60 years before. "He was my model," Churchill said. "I learned from him how to hold thousands in thrall." — William Bourke Cockran

Churchill, too, offered Roosevelt a name for the war; it summed up in three words the entire legacy of the appeasers and isolationists: The Unnecessary War. — William Manchester

was an eighth cousin of Churchill, and a sixth cousin, once removed, of FDR - and three of World War II's great leaders were thus linked by American intermarriages. — William Manchester

New York is a city with virtually no habitable public space - only private spaces expensively maintained within the general disaster. — John Updike

Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence. — William Zinsser

All weddings, except those with shotguns in evidence, are wonderful. — Liz Smith

Caring means cultivating the skills of an active listener. That is easier said than done, as an anecdote about the extraordinary social skills of British politicianBenjamin Disraeli and his rival William Gladstone illustrates ... The rivalry between the two statesmen piqued the curiosity of American Jennie Jerome, admired beauty and the mother of Winston Churchill. Ms. Jerome arranged to dine with Gladstone and then with Disraeli, on consecutive evenings. Afterward, she described the difference between the two men this way: "When I left the dining room after sitting next to Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But when I sat next to Disraeli, I left feeling that I was the cleverest woman. — Marian Deegan

Israel was thinking of warm beer, and muffins, and Wensleydale cheese, and Wallace and Gromit, and the music of Elgar, and the Clash, and the Beatles, and Jarvis Cocker, and the white cliffs of Dover, and Big Bend, and the West End, and Stonehenge, and Alton Towers, and the Last Night of the Proms, and Glastonbury, and William Hogarth, and William Blake, and Just William, and Winston Churchill, and the North Circular Road, and Grodzinski's for coffee, and rubbish, and potholes, and a slice of Stilton and a pickled onion, and George Orwell. And Gloria, of course. He was almost home to Gloria. G-L-O-R-I-A. — Ian Sansom

Biographer diagnoses reaction to restriction as a tell of true character. Some use even prison as a time of reflection and planning. Others, like Churchill, quickly chafe at missing interaction and opportunity. — William Manchester

The truth is so precious," Churchill told Stalin, "that she should always be protected by a bodyguard of lies. — William Manchester