- I am still unrepentant about Suez. People never look at What would have happened if we had done nothing. There is a parallel with the 30's. If you allow people to break agreements with impunity, the appetite grows to feed on such things. I don't see what other we ought to have done. One cannot dodge. It is hard to act rather than dodge.
- Hitler was an oddly sympathetic character. He took pains to be reasonable and was extremely well-informed, but intractable in negotiations.
- Peace at any price has never averted war. We must not repeat the mistakes of the prewar years by behaving as though the enemies of peace and order are armed with only good intentions.
- War I hated for all I had seen of it among my family and friends, for the death, muck and misery, the pounding shell-fire and the casualty clearing stations.
- A year later, a by-election at Warwick and Leamington gave me an unexpected opportunity to defeat my sister's mother-in-law, the Countess of Warwick, who had taken up the cause of socialism. I represented this constituency, or rather it remained faithful to me, for more than 33 years.
- Mussolini, contrary to myth, never shouted at me. He was very sober, quiet and depressing. He had a journalist's mind, active and playing with different subjects, with good deal of knowledge.
- He had a very clear sense of purpose. He was never violent in speech, nor brash, but quiet and [he] insisted oh the things that mattered to him. Stalin was ruthless and cruel, no doubt, but remarkable.
- On the contrary, bombing creates a sort of David and Goliath complex in any country that has to suffer - as we had to, and as I suspect the Germans had to, in the last war.
- It was not over protocol, Chamberlain's communicating with Mussolini without telling me. I never cared a goddamn, a tuppence about protocol. The reason for my resignation was that we had an agreement with Mussolini about the Mediterranean and Spain, which he was violating by sending troops to Spain, and Chamberlain wanted to have another agreement. I thought Mussolini should honor the first one before we negotiated for the second. I was trying to fight a delaying action for Britain, and I could not go along with Chamberlain's policy.
- Roosevelt was familiar with the history and geography of Europe. Perhaps his hobby of stamp collecting had helped him to this knowledge, but the academic yet sweeping opinions which he built upon it were alarming in their cheerful fecklessness. He seemed to see himself disposing of the fate of many lands, Allied no less than enemy. He did all this with so much grace that it was not easy to dissent. Yet it was too like a conjuror, skillfully juggling with balls of dynamite, whose nature he failed to understand.
- Painting is one of my great interests. Unlike most politicians, I stopped painting when I became a politician, so I take my pleasure in enjoying art, not in creating it. Although I have never been rich, I have tried to buy pictures that please me. Paintings have been a very pleasant escape for me. When I didn't want to listen to other politicians speaking, I would always think of my paintings. It is essential to have some diversion like that, otherwise you will go mad. The Foreign Office was a terribly stern taskmaster. The amount of detail and the number of telegrams I was obliged to read left very little time for reading other things, so I have not found it relaxing to read. Of course, if my wife says, 'You must read this.' I try to.
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