Precipice Quotes

“But politics is merely a process of replacing one problem with another.”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“This fantasy of his was becoming tedious. Not”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“had long ago developed the vital political defence mechanism of not remembering those things which it was more convenient to forget.”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“At one o’clock in the morning, the Prime Minister, with a quarter of a bottle of brandy inside him, climbed slightly unsteadily into the back of a taxi and was driven by an amazed cabbie to Buckingham Palace.”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“There’s an instinct for destruction in these tribal conflicts beyond the reach of any rational argument.”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“across Europe, he thought – everyone moving into position, everything tending in the same direction, towards the precipice. The world had gone mad.”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“There were twelve deliveries a day in London in 1914. It would be in his hands by mid-afternoon.
Pg5”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“He did not complain. He was proud to live in a country, possessed of an empire of some 440 million people, in which the head of the government passed unrecognised, and whose official residence was at the end of a side street hardly anyone could find.”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“with”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“It sounds to me as though the whole conception is flawed. Surely it would be wiser to abandon it now, before any more lives are lost?’ ‘I’m afraid that would be a disastrous blow to our prestige internationally, but especially in the Mediterranean. Just between ourselves, we have some hopes of bringing Italy into the war on our side in the next few weeks. Can you imagine the effect it would have on that? No, I fear there’s no alternative except to double down.”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“reverie I realise that I am in the Cabinet room. The Germans are pounding away with their big guns at Antwerp, and tho’ the Belgians are in large numerical superiority they seem to have lost morale & nerve,”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“He was proud to live in a country, possessed of an empire of some 440 million people, in which the head of the government passed unrecognised, and whose official residence was at the end of a side street hardly anyone could find.”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“His charm was to treat the gravest matters of state as if they were nothing of any consequence, whereas the lightest of trivialities – dresses, card games, word puzzles, golf, poetry, popular novels – he discussed with the utmost seriousness.”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“On Wednesday, he chaired another meeting of the War Council, enlarged by the addition of Bonar Law and the Unionist leader in the House of Lords, Lord Lansdowne. What had begun as a purely naval operation had now, in the face of Turkish and German resistance, swollen to a plan for a full-scale land invasion. Kitchener proposed to send the best of his new armies training in England, the 29th Division, which together with French, Australian and New Zealand divisions would bring the task force’s strength to almost seventy thousand men. They would land on the Gallipoli Peninsula. During the discussion, the Prime Minister kept his eye on Jackie Fisher, who seemed as usual detached, his faintly Oriental face with its yellowish complexion – a consequence of malaria and dysentery caught on active service in Egypt – staring out of the window, as if the whole thing had nothing to do with him.”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“The best precedent for what we face is the American Civil War, which killed more than six hundred thousand soldiers. But that was a war confined to one country – mostly to one part of one country – which is trivial compared to the scale of a general European land war. Also, that was fifty years ago. The effectiveness of artillery and small arms has greatly advanced since then. If this conflict lasts until nineteen-seventeen, the deaths will be in the millions.”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“Normally, he didn’t much bother with the papers. But his leave had given him plenty of spare time – more time than he knew what to do with – and the result was that all week he had been following the international news, finding each day’s developments more ominous than the last’s. Turning the pages, his mind went back to the politicians and diplomats he had seen at the Downing Street garden party – the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the German and Russian ambassadors. They had all seemed so languidly confident, such masters of the world. But now in the press they appeared to him as helpless, diminished, almost puny figures, when set against the tidal wave of the crisis. He wondered if he shouldn’t go in to Scotland Yard, leave or no leave: at least he would have someone to talk to. But then he thought, no, that was stupid, his colleagues would laugh at him. His philosophy was to worry about only those things over which he had some control. He therefore resolved to stick to his original plan and spend the day in his garden. He folded the papers and changed into his work clothes.”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“And you – my most dearly beloved, to whom every day & night I give my best thoughts, my most intimate confidence, my unceasing devotion, my fears & hopes, my strength & weakness, my past my present my future – you! – what would it mean to you?”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way; For then despite of space I would be brought, From limits far remote where thou dost stay. No matter then although my foot did stand Upon the farthest earth removed from thee; For nimble thought can jump both sea and land As soon as think the place where he would be. But ah! thought kills me that I am not thought, To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone, But that so much of earth and water wrought I must attend time’s leisure with my moan, Receiving nought by elements so slow But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“The worst crises in politics always occurred, in his experience, when two unrelated problems struck at once. The difficulties weren’t doubled, or even squared, but cubed.
Pg345”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“His philosophy was to worry about only those things over which he had some control. He therefore resolved to stick to his original plan and spend the day in his garden. He folded the papers and changed into his work clothes.
Pg103”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“Major Hankey, secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, was brought in by Bongie, and placed in front of him on the table the large red and blue leather-bound volume known as the War Book, he opened it sceptically. On the title page it said: ‘Co-ordination of Departmental Action on the Occurrence of Strained Relations and on the Outbreak of War’. Hankey, a spare, neat figure who reminded him of his old school gym instructor, had spent years of his life devising this bureaucratic masterpiece.
Remind me how it works.
The Foreign Secretary formally warns the Cabinet that he can “forsee the danger of this country being involved in war in the near future” and that sets the machine in motion. Eleven government departments will then send out the warning telegram across the Empire – ports, railways, post offices, army headquarters, police stations, town halls and so forth – initiating the precautionary phase. The recipients have already been issued with instructions, so they know what to do when they receive the warning telegram.
And what does this telegram say?
“In the circumstance that Great Britain is at war with …, act upon instructions.”
How many telegrams will be sent?
…thousands.
Pg93”
― Robert Harris, Precipice

“To sorrow I bade good morrow And thought to leave her far away behind But cheerly cheerly she loves me dearly She is so constant to me and so kind …”
― Robert Harris, Precipice