James Buchan Quotes & Sayings (Page 6)

“The west has a great deal to answer for in the Middle East, from Britain's belated empire-building after the First World War to the US and British policy that condemns modern Iraq to the material and social squalor of a half-century ago.”

“Whatever else it was, Adolf Hitler's short-lived regime was also a colossal industrial process by which the wealth and productive power of much of Europe was wrenched from its normal purposes and converted into a machine for killing.”

“If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside.”

“Profits in business always depend on the rate of interest: the higher the interest, the higher the rate of profit required.”

“Any new financial order for the world must tackle the three chief challenges of our age.”

“Life without oil, in fact, would be so different that it is frightening to contemplate. We are addicted, and it is no comfortable addiction.”

“To give money to a woman - and here I must speak as a man - is to deny her special quality, her irreplaceability, and reduce her unique amiability to a commodity. Money takes away her name, while transforming her lover into a nameless customer of a market of appetites.”

“To make a love story, you need a couple of young people, but to reflect on the nature of love, you're better off with old ones. That is a fact of life and literature - and of the novel ever since it fell in love with love in the 18th century.”

“Rarely in modern times has there been such a revolution in commercial sentiment as occurred in 2008, or such a display in government and business of panic and helplessness.”

“Almost all novels are improved by cutting from the top. On their first pages, authors parade those favourite effects which disgust the impartial reader.”