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A Stalin functionary admitted, Innocent people were arrested: naturally - otherwise no one would be frightened. If people were arrested only for specific misdemeanours, all the others would feel safe and so become ripe for treason.

Paul Johnson

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Paul Johnson
Age: 96
Born: 1928
Born: November 2
Editor
Historian
Journalist
Speechwriter
Writer
Manchester
England
Paul Bede Johnson
Feel
Specific
Feels
Naturally
Functionary
Would
Innocent
Stalin
People
Otherwise
Admitted
Safe
Treason
Fear
Ripe
Others
Arrested
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Frightened

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Long periods of recession, which tend to be self-perpetuating, are usually ended by war, or by preparations for it.
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The most evil person I ever met was a toss-up between Pablo Picasso and the publisher-crook Robert Maxwell.
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Nothing appeals to intellectuals more than the feeling that they represent 'the people'. Nothing, as a rule, is further from the truth
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Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.
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There are no inevitabilities in history
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As a child I found railroad stations exciting, mysterious, and even beautiful, as indeed they often were.
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In the past, the U.S. has shown its capacity to reinvent its gifts for leadership. During the 1970s, in the aftermath of the Nixon abdication and the Ford and Carter presidencies, the whole nation peered into the abyss, was horrified by what it saw and elected Ronald Reagan as president, which began a national resurgence.
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You know you're an Arizona native when you have to look up mass transit in the dictionary.
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It takes less than a decade for today's luxury to become a universal necessity.
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The Second World War took place not so much because no one won the First, but because the Versailles Treaty did not acknowledge this truth.
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Hell is being trapped in a night-club with the'beautiful people'and forced to live in a'luxury penthouse flat'.
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If I see a door ajar, I push on it to see how far it will open, and if it opens wide I go through it.
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I was very fond of Princess Diana. She used to have me over to lunch to ask my advice. I'd give her good advice, and she'd say: 'I entirely agree. Paul, you're so right.' Then she'd go and do the opposite.
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My grandfather used to say, Learn to like art, music and literature deeply and passionately. They will be your friends when things are bad. It is true: at this time of year, when days are short and dark, and one hardly dares to open the newspapers, I turn, not vainly either, to the great creators of the past for distraction, solace and help.
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The word 'meaningful' when used today is nearly always meaningless.
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As the CIA and KGB, like God and Satan, fight Miltonic battles across five continents.
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I don't write huge books any more. I used to write 1,000 printed pages, but now I write short books. I did one on Napoleon, 50,000 words - enjoyed doing that. He was a baddie. I did one on Churchill, which was a bestseller in New York, I'm glad to say. 50,000 words. He was a goodie.
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The writer learns to write, in the last resort, only by writing. He must get words onto paper even if he is dissatisfied with them.
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I've been having an affair, but I still believe in family values.
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