Adam > Adam's Quotes

“And Wessex was the last kingdom of England.”
― Bernard Cornwell, The Last Kingdom

“The ubiquitous initials LSR for Luftschutzraum, or air-raid shelter, were said to stand for ‘Lernt schnell Russisc’: ‘Learn Russian quickly’.”
― Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945

“Candles were used to measure the diminishing levels of oxygen. When a candle placed on the floor went out, children were picked up and held at shoulder height. When a candle on a chair went out, then the evacuation of the level began. And if a third candle, positioned at about chin level, began to sputter, then the whole bunker was evacuated, however heavy the attack above.”
― Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945

“Most hospitals in England, even in the 1950s, were converted workhouses, so the buildings alone had an aura of degradation and death for people who had lived all their lives with the terror of being sent to the workhouse.”
― Jennifer Worth, Call The Midwife: A True Story Of The East End In The 1950s

“It looked a little like a railway terminus as designed by an overambitious architect … one obviously with ideas above his station.”
― Anthony Horowitz, With a Mind to Kill

“The idea was that a factory could send an elected representative, as could a university, or a women’s organization. These delegates would then meet in a central council – or ‘Soviet’ in Russian – to decide on policy matters, elect an executive and so on. So far so democratic. The reason why so many of the manifestations of this theory have turned out to be nothing more than puppet parliaments who rubber stamp legislation for those who wield real power is that it is open to manipulation. In the case of the GDR’s council, the Volkskammer, the list of candidates was completely fixed.”
― Katja Hoyer, Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990