Gretchen Rubin

"“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”"

"“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never . . . never give in, except to convictions of honor or good sense.”"

"“Short words are best,” he said, “and the old words when short are best of all.”"

"“Events were soon to arise in the fiscal sphere which were to plunge me into new struggles and absorb my thoughts and energies at least until September 1908, when I married and lived happily ever afterwards.”"

"Janet Malcolm observed, “The lay reader, who knows only what the biographer tells him, reads . . . in a state of bovine equanimity.”"

"Historically, forty meant “many”—just as we, after inflation, use the word million: “There are a million reasons to study Churchill.”"

"To distill Churchill’s sprawling life into its essential elements, each chapter focuses on one question. What was Churchill’s supreme moment? How did he see the world? What was his dominant quality? What were his motives, his formative role, his weaknesses, the important dates of his life? How did he look? How did he die? What made him a hero? Did he cheat on his wife? Such questions sound naive when put bluntly, but they are, after all, what we want to learn when we study great lives."