“Following the pattern set by Julius Caesar in The Gallic War, Churchill wrote books to vindicate policy; but he may also have made policy with an eye toward writing books. If so, the implications are alarming. Did Churchill conceive bold operations, such as the disastrous 1915 Dardanelles offensive, because these would make exciting episodes in the text of his life? A. J. Balfour once joked that Winston had written an enormous book about himself and called it The World Crisis. Was there more truth in that joke than we have so far known?”

— Mark Riebling

Churchill’s Finest Hour (2009)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Mark Riebling 39

American writer 1963

A.E. Samaan

Source: From a "Race of Masters" to a "Master Race": 1948 to 1848

“When I listened to the Prime Minister's speech last night, in which he gave such a travesty of the policy of the Labour Party, I realized at once what was his object. He wanted the electors to understand how great was the difference between Winston Churchill, the great leader in war of a united nation, and Mr. Churchill, the party leader of the Conservatives. He feared lest those who had accepted his leadership in war might be tempted out of gratitude to follow him further. I thank him for having disillusioned them so thoroughly. The voice we heard last night was that of Mr. Churchill, but the mind was that of Lord Beaverbrook.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast (5 June 1945) for the 1945 general election, quoted in The Times (6 June 1945), p. 2.
1940s

“When challenged why he had written so little, he fired back: "Moses wrote one book. Then what did he do?"”

Sidney Morgenbesser (1921–2004) American philosopher

The Independent, The Independent, Professor Sidney Morgenbesser: Philosopher celebrated for his withering New York Jewish humour http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/professor-sidney-morgenbesser-550224.html, 6 August 2004. The Times, Sidney Morgenbesser: Erudite and influential American linguistic philosopher with the analytical acuity of Spinoza and the blunt wit of Groucho Marx https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sidney-morgenbesser-5cz8gg8qfvm, September 8, 2004.

“God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

“There is no such thing, wrote Oscar Wilde, as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. Presumably, then, Mein Kampf would have been all right had it been better written.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Trash, Violence, and Versace: But Is It Art? http://www.city-journal.org/html/8_1_urbanities-trash.html (Winter 1998).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

“Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam “the most retrograde force in the world”, and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

2000s, Speech at the Four Seasons, New York (25 September 2008)

“Winston Churchill led the life that many men would love to live. He survived 50 gunfights and drank 20,000 bottles of champagne.”

Mark Riebling (1963) American writer

Churchill’s Finest Hour (2009)

“So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Comment on meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, according to Charles Edward Stowe, Lyman Beecher Stowe, "How Mrs. Stowe wrote 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'", McClure's magazine 36:621 http://books.google.com/books?id=biAAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA621&dq=%22little+woman+who+wrote+the+book+that+made+this+great+war%22 (April 1911), with a footnote stating: "Mr. Charles Edward Stowe, one of the authors of this article, accompanied his mother on this visit to Lincoln, and remembers the occasion distinctly."
Annie Fields, "Days with Mrs. Stowe", Atlantic Monthly 7:148 http://books.google.com/books?id=8F0CAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA148&dq=%22Is+this+the+little+woman+who+made+the+great+war%22 (August 1896)
Posthumous attributions
Variant: Her daughter was told that when the President heard her name he seized her hand, saying, "Is this the little woman who made the great war?"
Variant: So you are the little woman who caused this great war!

“When Winston Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in favour of the war effort, he simply asked,'then what are we fighting for?”

Kazuo Ishiguro (1954) Japanese-born British author

“This book was written in 1920 in the car of a military train and amid the flames of the civil war. The circumstance the reader must keep before his eyes if he wishes rightly to understand not only the basic material of the book, but also its harsh allusion, and particularly the tone in which it is written.”

Leon Trotsky book Terrorism and Communism

Introduction to the Second English Edition
Terrorism and Communism (1920)

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