Paula Fox Quotes

I wish that after the war against Saddam Hussein we had been more effective at rebuilding Iraq quickly. I think had we done it from the provinces, in, rather than from Baghdad, out, we might have been more successful.

We're still eating the leftovers of World War II.

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

In 2001-2002, I told the president that the election was supposed to take place when the war was over, at a time when we could return to peaceful life. We agreed upon that. However, I can see now that the election cannot be delayed any longer.

It's hard to kill a city, but easy to kill a company.

We must reduce as far as possible our establishment in Germany; for the residence of large numbers of representatives of a victor nation in a devastated conquered area is never a helpful factor, particularly when their living standards are as conspicuously different as are those of Americans in Germany.

London survived the Great Fire 350 years ago. We were not beaten by the Blitz or the horrors of 7/7. History has shown us how strong London is.

We've gone thorough religious wars and civil wars. America has gone through slavery, we've all gone through two world wars, segregation. Ultimately it's been a bloody, trying, wasteful, but eventually positive struggle.

First of all, we have to say loud and clear to all those who are engaged in the fighting that attention to and respect for humanitarian needs is absolutely imperative. Anyone with any knowledge of Iraq, never mind any concern about the future, knows that the way in which the war is prosecuted has a big impact on what comes afterwards.

Wars almost never end the way starters had in mind.

The world is rather shot to pieces [end of World War II - 1945], but the spectators climb out of their caves and pretend to have again become normal and customary humans who ask each other's pardon instead of eating one another or sucking each other's blood. The entertaining folly of war evaporates, distinguished boredom sits down again on the dignified old overstuffed chairs.. .May I report about myself that I have had a truly grotesque time, brim-full with work, Nazi persecutions, bombs, hunger, and again and again work - in spite of everything [a. o. using his bed sheets as canvas for the new paintings].

So I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them: Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

War is just like bush-clearing-the moment you stop, the jungle comes back even thicker, but for a little while you can plant and grow a crop in the ground you have won at such a terrible cost.

The war is won, but the peace is not.

In reality, at the end of World War II, America imposed democracy at the point of a bayonet on Japan and Germany, and it has proved a resounding success in both countries. The problem with liberals is that they never give bayonets a chance.

Our modern wars make many unhappy while they last and none happy when they are over.

It is always easy enough to take up arms, but very difficult to lay them down; the commencement and the termination of war are notnecessarily in the same hands; even a coward may begin, but the end comes only when the victors are willing.

Once I knew the City very well, spent my attic days there, while others were being a lost generation in Paris, I fledged in San Francisco, climbed its hills. slept in its parks, worked on its docks, marched and shouted in its revolts~ It had been to me in the days of my poverty and it did not resent my temporary solvency.

I simply can't imagine the world will ever be normal again for us. I do talk about "after the war," but it's as if I'm talking about a castle in the air, something that can never come true.

... a war always ends.

Taking stock of 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' a decade later, the Financial Times concluded that the US won the war, Iran won the peace, and Turkey won the contracts. I can only agree.

By comparison with other less hectic days, the city is unconfortable and inconvenient; but New Yorkers tempramentally do not crave comfort and convenience - if they did they would live elsewhere.

No country has suffered so much from the ruins of war while being at peace as the American.