Sublime

idée fixe

Willing, in order to accomplish his purposes—purposes which in 1945 revolved around the retention and acquisition of power—to throw onto the table any chip he held, he had, in the election of 1945, with a chance to obtain more power than he had ever possessed before, thrown onto the table the most valuable of all his chips: his name.

I’m not so stupid. One doesn’t take one’s enemy’s book as a souvenir. There it is on your shelf. The Role of the West. Who is this York Harding?’ ‘He’s the man you are looking for, Vigot. He killed Pyle—at long range.’ ‘I don’t understand.’ ‘He’s a superior sort of journalist—they call them diplomatic correspondents. He gets hold of an idea and the

“Now he belongs to the ages.”

When Red Mike Hylan swept into City Hall—Mitchel, who had been elected in 1913 by the largest plurality in New York’s history, was turned out in 1917 by an even larger plurality—Progressivism in the city was dead.

debouched

decline into a mere rationalization of political interests.

he was a certain kind of smart and sophisticated German who’d found, in the black uniform and death’s-head insignia, a way to indulge a taste for evil.