The Three Hostages Quotes

“We are all, even the best of us, egoists and self-deceivers, and without a little comfortable make-believe to clothe us we should freeze in the outer winds.”
― John Buchan, The Three Hostages

“He said that the great offensives of the future would be psychological, and he thought the Governments should get busy about it and prepare their defence... He considered that the most deadly weapon in the world was the power of mass-persuasion.”
― John Buchan, The Three Hostages

“It was pretty clear that he was mad, for madness means just this dislocation of the modes of thought which mortals have agreed upon as necessary to keep the world together.”
― John Buchan, The Three Hostages

“I loathed having to screw myself up to emergencies late in the day. Such things should take place in the early morning. It was like going over the top in France; I didn’t mind it so much when it happened during a drizzling dawn, when one was anyhow depressed and only half-awake, but I abominated an attack in the cold-blooded daylight, or in the dusk when one wanted to relax.”
― John Buchan, The Three Hostages