Berlin quotes

Berlin by Christmas.

-Anonymous
  British press.

Isherwood did not so much find himself in Berlin as reinvent himself; Isherwood became a fiction, a work of art.

- Ian Buruma
  Of Christopher Isherwood. In the New Republic, 4 Nov.

Away with the music of Broadway! Be off with your Irving Berlin! Oh, I'd give no quarter to Kern or Cole Porter and Gershwin keeps pounding on tin. How can I be civil when hearing this drivel? It's only for night-clubbing souses. Oh, give me the free 'n'easy waltz that is Viennesey And go tell the band if they want a hand the waltz must be Strauss's!

- Ira originally Israel Gershowitz Gershwin
  'By Strauss'.

There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin!

-John F(itzgerald) Kennedy
   Address in Berlin's Rudolf  Wilde Platz, 26  Jun, 22 months after the erection of the wall dividing the city.

To those who charge that liberalism has been tried and found wanting, I answer that the failure is not in the idea but in the course of recent history. The New Deal was ended by World War II. The New Frontier was closed by Berlin and Cuba even before it was opened. And the Great Society lost its greatness in the jungles of Indochina.

- George S(tanley) McGovern
  Lecture at Oxford University, 21  Jan.

When you see how in this happy country the lowest and poorest member of society takes an interest in all public affairs; when you see how high and low, rich and poor, are all willing to declare their feelings and convictions; when you see howa carter, a common sailor, a beggar is still a man, nay, even more, an Englishmanthen, believe me, you find yourself very differently affected fromtheexperienceyoufeelwhenstaring atoursoldiers drilling in Berlin.

- Karl Philipp Moritz
  Letter to a friend after observing a London by-election.