Michael Frayn Quotes
You can create a good impression on yourself by being right, he realizes, but for creating a good impression on others there's nothing to beat being totally and catastrophically wrong.
Frayn, Michael. Towards the End of the Morning. Collins, 1967.
He was the leader of the team that followed to invading troops into Iraq to find the nuclear and other WMDs that the CIA had said were deployed and ready to be used. They found none. Worse for the CIA, there were not even any development programs ongoing. The CIA Director was furious with Kay for admitting the CIA gross error. Kay was given minor assignments thereafter even though he was the best WMD analyst we had.
Some ascribe the remark to Joseph Fouche. See Dean Acheson for a later use of this concept in describing the Vietnam War.
We all have 20-20 hindsight, and sometimes well analyzed decisions turn out badly as the result of unfortunate circumstances.
Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon-Condé, the Duke of Enghien, was falsely accused of plotting against the French government. He was arrested and hung, to the dismay of Napoleon's court. The famous and feared Fouché was heard to say contemptuously: The quotation may first have been uttered at the May 21 execution by Boulay de la Meurthe.
Elements of the Army lied to the family of the dead soldier and the media, and then tried to cover up the lies. Abazaid is one of the few government high officials who was candid about his agency’s failure.
Michael Frayn, FRSL is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy. His novels, such as Towards the End of the Morning, Headlong and Spies, have also been critical and commercial successes, making him one of the handful of writers in the English language to succeed in both drama and prose fiction. He has also written philosophical works, such as The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of the Universe (2006).
