Martha Gellhorn People Quotations

War happens to people, one by one. That is really all I have to say and it seems to me I have been saying it forever. Unless they are immediate victims, the majority of mankind behaves as if war was an act of God which could not be prevented; or they behave as if war elsewhere was none of their business. It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.

[On the United States:] We are a wildly energetic people in our pursuit of pleasure, let alone in our pursuit of money, and we are very odd to look at as we go about our lives.

... people miss a great deal by being sensible.

After the desperate years of their own war, after six years of repression inside Spain and six years of horror in exile, these people remain intact in spirit. They are armed with a transcendent faith; they have never won, and yet they have never accepted defeat.

In the end, in England, when you want to find out how people are feeling, you always go to the pubs.

Journalism at its best and most effective is education. Apparently people would not learn for themselves, nor from others.

Why do people talk of the horrors of old age? It's great. I feel like a fine old car with the parts gradually wearing out, but I'm not complaining,... Those who find growing old terrible are people who haven't done what they wanted with their lives.

All politicians are bores and liars and fakes. I talk to people.

Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit.