Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy, #1)

by Ken Follett

Men were the only animals that slaughtered their own kind by the million, and turned the landscape into a waste of shell craters and barbed wire. Perhaps the human race would wipe itself out completely, and leave the world to the birds and trees, Walter thought apocalyptically. Perhaps that would be for the best.

His talent was to express his readers’ most stupid and ignorant prejudices as if they made sense, so that the shameful seemed respectable. That was why they bought the paper.

“The ability to listen to smart people who disagree with you is a rare talent—but a president should have it.

If you owe a hundred dollars, the bank has you in its power; but if you owe a million dollars, you have the bank in your power.’”

The degradation to which you subject others comes back, sooner or later, to haunt you,

“If you’re worried about the Bolsheviks, tell people not to vote for them. And what is this obsession with Jews?” “They are a pernicious influence.” “There are Jews in Britain. Father, don’t you remember how Lord Rothschild in London tried his best to prevent the war? There are Jews in France, in Russia, in America. They’re not conspiring to betray their governments. What makes you think ours are peculiarly evil? Most of them only want to earn enough to feed their families and send their children to school—just the same as everyone else.”