Fletcher Knebel Quotes

Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.

Canada will bring us power for the future, Scandinavia the character, the steadiness…It’s the grand concept for survival…a union of know-how, that’s us, with power and character.

Jim MacVeigh had reached the conclusion that the President of the United States was insane.

The mental business is almost impossible to handle at the apex of government

Nobody in this country can tell a president of the United States that his mind is sick.

Who knew what fantastic secret agreement might emerge from such a meeting?

Zuchek, a patient, steel-nerved negotiator, utterly devoted to Russia's self-interest, vs. Hollenbach, whose once brilliant mind now was obsessed with fancied tormentors and played like a child's with the toy blocks of destiny.

He's trying to belittle the presidency and drag it down to his own smart-aleck level.

Freedom of the press is one thing, but unbridled license to degrade and ridicule officials who devote their lives to this country is something else again.

O'Malley did it for the express purpose of embarrassing me in an election year.” The President's eyes locked on MacVeagh's, but the younger man grinned.

You double-crossed me, MacVeagh,” continued Hollenbach, his speech... You've joined the plot to discredit me and disgrace the administration—for what exact purposes, I don't know yet.

Suddenly the thought struck MacVeagh: President (Mark) Hollenbach must not be allowed to go into the conference with Zuchek (Russian premier). My God, Mark might be capable of anything. Who knew what Zuchek, a patient, steel-nerved negotiator, utterly devoted to Russia’s self-interest, vs Hollenbach, whose once brilliant mind now was obsessed with fancied tormentors and played like a child’s with the toy blocks of destiny.

Oh Senator, how could you be so cruel – and so ignorant of the true facts.” “Facts are facts, Mrs. Byerson….There are no such things as true facts, for then we’d have to have false facts, wouldn’t we.

The last time a madman mashed the button, we got the Second World War and six million Jews were cremated. The next time the button is mashed, we could cremate the human race.

The General’s preoccupation with electronic gadgetry irked Randall. The world had become a wondrous fabric of instant communication, linking millions of people in the same old abundance of problems and poverty of solutions.

And now the nice big fat file on MacVeagh and Rita Krasicki probably rested in a cabinet of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Since the bureau seldom threw anything away, the folder would lie there unseen for years, perhaps never to be inspected again. But there it was, nevertheless, a sapless chronicle of suspected passion and adultery. The very existence of such a dossier on a U.S. senator carried an implied threat—to vote right on FBI appropriations and all legislation desired by the bureau. With data like that about himself in the FBI raw files—and the word “raw” carried a caustic connotation in this case—what legislator would take the chance of raising questions about how the bureau spent the taxpayers’ money? Oh, well, he thought, on balance he had to admit the FBI was a fine institution. Not under J. Edgar Hoover, or since, had there been any indication of such tacit blackmail. The bureau drew a steel curtain between its files and its legislative operations. But still they had MacVeagh catalogued now, and for decades, perhaps, his trysts with Rita would lie in some air-conditioned government recess, microfilmed for posterity.

Jim left his McLean house absent-mindedly, forgetting the usual kiss for Martha and neglecting to pull down the garage door, a daily habit as ingrained as brushing his teeth.

Jim left his McLean house absent-mindedly, forgetting the usual kiss for Martha and neglecting to pull down the garage door, a daily habit as ingrained as brushing his teeth. Driving his convertible over the George Washington Parkway, he turned the windows down.

No man, said O’Malley, could ever act lightly in attempting to remove the President of the United States. The office, if not always the man, commanded a respect and an awe that almost amounted to reverence. And so it should always be, said O’Malley.

Behind the President hung the emblem of the club which had satirized every White House occupant since Benjamin Harrison.

For a Republican to laugh at himself requires a severe psychological upheaval.

The Republican senator, tracking as always like a wolf who scorns the pack, had found favoritism in the building contract. It was not fraud. No bribery had been uncovered, no venality, no mysteriously fattened bank accounts.

it was only a matter of time until the President announced that Vice-President Patrick O’Malley would not be his running mate in the fall campaign for re-election. O’Malley had been muddied beyond scouring in Senator Bryce Robinson’s one-man investigation of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Sports Arena. The Republican senator, tracking as always like a wolf who scorns the pack, had found favoritism in the building contract. It was not fraud. No bribery had been uncovered, no venality, no mysteriously fattened bank accounts.

Give up the hope, Jims. In the first place, Mark won’t pick you, believe me. Second, even if he did, you’re not the cut for it. You’re gentle, you’re wonderful in bed, and you’re nice to have around the house—but not the White House. Let’s face it. You play at life, Jims. You don’t work at it.

You trust a man to remain as normal as he was the day he got the job.

Andrate,” said Trumbull, “nobody—but nobody—in this country can tell a president of the United States that his mind is sick.

Jim MacVeagh had reached the conclusion that the President of the United States was insane.

His thoughts became weird flashes which changed abruptly like a kaleidoscope. Sweden, maroon on a map, Norway in green. A vice-president with a wife of Swedish stock….My God, he hadn’t caught the significance. Could that be his link with the grand concept?…Mark Hollenbach, his crew cut bristling like a mop of spikes, striding toward Hudson Bay in a black turtleneck sweater. Walking, walking, with earphones strapped to his head and the murmurs of a thousand exotic conversations pouring in from telephone lines across the continent. O’Malley, Spence and the Chicago banker, Davidge, standing mute and stunned in the background….Hollenbach on a dais in Stockholm, wearing robes of royal purple, and studying a military map of Europe with a cluster of generals in strange uniforms….