The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

by Erik Larson

“It is slothful not to compress your thoughts,” he said.

Churchill was deeply moved, Ismay saw. Upon entering the building, Churchill, never afraid to express emotion, began to weep.

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

“It would be foolish to disguise the gravity of the hour,” he said. “It would be still more foolish to lose heart and courage.”

“I am convinced that every man of you would rise up and tear me down from my place if I were for one moment to contemplate parley or surrender. If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.”

“gave forth a confidence and invincible will that called out everything that was brave and strong.”

“protagonists on a vaster scene and as champions of a high and invincible cause, for which the stars in their courses were fighting.”

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“Wars are not won by evacuations.”

“We shall go on to the end,” he said, in a crescendo of ferocity and confidence. “We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender—”

“And…we will fight them with the butt end of broken bottles, because that’s bloody well all we’ve got.”

“Always remember, Clemmie, that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.”

kept us fully alive to the horrors of reality.”

‘This was their finest hour.’

a French maxim, “On ne règne sur les âmes que par le calme,” meaning, essentially, “One leads by calm.”

Now and then Churchill gazed adoringly at the cat and murmured, “Cat, darling.”

“Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.”

Never was there such a contrast of natural splendor and human vileness.” CHAPTER

“Where Cromwell signed King Charles’s death warrant.”

Senate, and soon—and without being

“If we can’t be safe, let us at least be comfortable.”

“Don’t marry someone because they want to marry you—but because you want to marry them.”

He did not agree. “I never gave them courage,” he said. “I was able to focus theirs.”

“Winston Churchill was stark naked, a drink in one hand, a cigar in the other.”