# Edge of Eternity

## Metadata
- Author: [[Ken Follett]]
- Full Title: Edge of Eternity
- Category: #books
## Highlights
- Cuba had to escape from underdevelopment and colonialism. No one wanted the Americans back, with their casinos and their prostitutes. ([Location 3474](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=3474))
- He felt as if he were on a ship sailing through calm waters to an unknown destination: all was well for the moment, but what lay ahead? ([Location 3641](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=3641))
- Nowadays he avoided political discussions with outsiders. They usually had easy answers: send all the Mexicans home, put Hells Angels in the army, castrate the queers. The greater their ignorance, the stronger their opinions. ([Location 4071](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=4071))
- J. Edgar Hoover can’t find the Mafia, either. But he knows the name of every Communist in America.” ([Location 5769](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=5769))
- “Our great stumbling block, in our stride toward freedom, is not the White Citizens’ Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner. It’s the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who constantly says, like Bobby Kennedy: ‘I agree with the goal you seek, but I cannot condone your methods.’ He paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom.” ([Location 5801](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=5801))
- “We will have to repent, in this generation, not merely for the hateful words and actions of bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good,” King said, and George had to struggle against tears. “The time is always ripe to do right. ‘Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream,’ said the prophet Amos. You tell Bobby Kennedy that, George.” ([Location 5804](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=5804))
- “Call no man happy until he is dead,” said the playwright Aeschylus: Dimka had heard that quote at university and always remembered it. Youthful promise could be blighted by later tragedy; suffering was often rewarded by wisdom. ([Location 8700](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=8700))
- “Just because someone asks you a question, don’t think you have to answer. I’ve learned that in politics.” ([Location 9356](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=9356))
- Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom. ‘All men make mistakes,’ said the ancient Greek Sophocles. ‘But a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only sin is pride.’” ([Location 11181](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=11181))
- “A person who breaks a promise diminishes herself. It’s like losing a finger. It’s worse than being paralyzed, which is merely physical. Someone whose promises are worthless has a disabled soul.” ([Location 12544](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=12544))
- I’m hated today as passionately as I was loved a year ago. It’s the phenomenon Oscar Wilde noticed: one turns to the other with bewildering suddenness.” ([Location 13206](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=13206))
- Most people in the Soviet bloc treated Communism as a religion that was a sin to question. ([Location 13919](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=13919))
- Lili looked around the table. This was her family: her parents, her sister, her brother, her niece, and her oldest friend and singing partner. How lucky she was to have them all together in the same room, eating and talking and drinking wine. The thought occurred to her that some families did this every week, and took it for granted. ([Location 14154](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=14154))
- “The Soviet Union has the right to invade any country when the interests of Communism are under threat. That’s the Brezhnev Doctrine.” ([Location 14359](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=14359))
- Christmas Day was not a big festival. The Communists disliked its religious nature. They changed Santa Claus to Father Frost and the Virgin Mary to the Snow Maiden, and moved the celebration to New Year. ([Location 14757](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=14757))
- However, he now knew that being her long-distance lover, as he had for many years, was better than being her husband. In the old days they had had sex more times in a weekend than they did now in a month. Since they got married their frequent and furious rows, usually about child care, had eroded their affection for one another like a slow drip of strong vitriol. They lived together, they took care of their son, and they pursued their careers. Did they love one another? George no longer knew. ([Location 14795](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00FKF0F3C&location=14795))