Top 300 Ken Follett Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “Men were the only animals that slaughtered their own kind by the million, and turned the landscape into a waste of shell craters and barbed wire. Perhaps the human race would wipe itself out completely, and leave the world to the birds and trees, Walter thought apocalyptically. Perhaps that would be for the best.”

— Ken Follett

252. “They demanded tolerance, and the right to worship as they wished, but they were never satisfied with that, he thought with exasperation. They believed their rivals were not just mistaken but evil. Catholic practices – the ways in which Europeans had worshipped for hundreds of years – were blasphemous, they said, and must be abolished. They did not practice the tolerance they preached.”

— Ken Follett

253. “All the same he was depressed and bitter. Life never dealt him a winning hand.”

— Ken Follett

254. “Monks committed all the same sins that ordinary people did. He had just been shocked by the woman’s shamelessness. The sight of her nakedness remained with him, the way the hot heart of a candle flame, stared at for a few moments, would burn on behind closed eyelids.”

— Ken Follett

255. “It was unladylike even to know the name of your lawyer, let alone to understand your rights under the law. No wonder women were mercilessly exploited.”

— Ken Follett

256. “They had paid her the compliment of coming to her door without an invitation, knowing they would be welcomed. They belonged to her, and she to them. They were, she realized, her family.”

— Ken Follett

257. “Men often told a fairy tale in which there was a division of labor in families, the man going out to earn money, the woman looking after home and children. Reality was different.”

— Ken Follett

258. “People change’. Weak women change to please men, Lili thought.”

— Ken Follett

259. “Most of my stories have some basis in fact.”

— Ken Follett

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260. “Walli’s sister came into the room. Lili was almost three years younger, and these days he was not sure how to treat her. For as long as he could remember she had been a pain in the neck, like a younger boy but sillier. However, lately she had become more sensible and, to complicate matters, some of her friends had breasts.”

— Ken Follett

261. “It was amazing, Philip thought, how a clear case of injustice could come to seem evenly balanced when argued at the court.”

— Ken Follett

262. “Thrillers have been traditionally very masculine books; the women characters often rather decorative.”

— Ken Follett

263. “Meanwhile the subject peoples of the Austrian Empire were starting to think they might rule themselves – which was why the Bosnian nationalist Gavrilo Princip had shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.”

— Ken Follett

264. “International politics is like a glass. Aggressive moves by either side pour water in. The overflow is war.” Dimka.”

— Ken Follett

265. “Don’t be a hero. Leave that to them that started the war – the upper classes, the Conservatives, the officers.”

— Ken Follett

266. “They were taught about democracy in London, not about tyranny in Cairo.”

— Ken Follett

267. “You didn’t ask for a priest.” “Whether I’ve been good or bad, I don’t think God will be fooled by a last-minute change of heart.”

— Ken Follett

268. “All his life he would cherish the memory of an endless caravan of camels alongside the railway line, the laden beasts plodding patiently through the snow, ignoring the twentieth century as it hurtled past them in a clash of iron and a shriek of steam.”

— Ken Follett

269. “This was not a political party. It was an army.”

— Ken Follett

270. “The worst thing of all would be to disgrace himself. He was more afraid of that than of dying.”

— Ken Follett

271. “Why did people manufacture trouble when there was already so much of it in the world?”

— Ken Follett

272. “Like all diplomats, Walter hated it when monarchs talked directly to each other, instead of through their ministers. Anything could happen then.”

— Ken Follett

273. “When you’re about to be turned down, go for a postponement.”

— Ken Follett

274. “Everybody takes what they life from the teachings of the church, and ignores the parts that don’t suit them.”

— Ken Follett

275. “A woman would always prefer to be remembered than forgotten.”

— Ken Follett

276. “We’ll see, Grigori thought as he drifted off to sleep. Brave words came easily in the dark. Daylight might tell a different story.”

— Ken Follett

277. “We all now tell stories by cutting from one dramatic scene to the next, whereas Victorian novelists felt free to write long passages of undramatic summary.”

— Ken Follett

278. “An awful lot of thriller writers write women rather badly. So just doing it OK gets a lot of credit.”

— Ken Follett

279. “There was something terribly thrilling in watching the elements spit and sway and roar in fury, in standing fractionally too close to the cliff edge, feeling threatened and safe at the same time, shivering with cold and perspiring in fear. It was thrilling, and there were few thrills in her life.”

— Ken Follett

280. “This guy was high on Greg’s suspect list. He was German, though he had left in the mid-1930s and gone to London. He was an anti-Nazi but not a Communist: his politics were Social Democrat. He was married to an American girl, an artist. Talking to him over lunch, Greg found no reason for suspicion: he seemed to love living in America and to be interested in little but his work. But with foreigners you could never be quite sure where their ultimate loyalty lay.”

— Ken Follett

281. “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.”

— Ken Follett

282. “She was twenty-six years old, her life was ruined, and it was her own fault.”

— Ken Follett

283. “The people of the East End did not want to overthrow the British government. On the contrary, they were deeply attached to their elections and their borough councils and their Houses of Parliament. They liked their system of government so much that they were determined to defend it against Fascism even if it would not defend itself.”

— Ken Follett

284. “Ethel had not gone to chapel – there was too much to do in the house. “What did you pray about?” “I asked the Lord to help us understand why He allowed the explosion down the pit.” Billy cast a nervous glance at Da, who was not smiling. Da said severely: “Billy might have done better to ask God to strengthen his faith, so that he can believe without understanding.”

— Ken Follett

285. “How exciting to be at the center of power.” “It is exciting, but strangely enough it doesn’t feel like the center of power. In a democracy the president is subject to the voters.” “But surely he doesn’t just do what the public wants.” “Not exactly, no. President Wilson says a leader must treat public opinion the way a sailor deals with the wind, using it to blow the ship in one direction or another, but never trying to go directly against it.”

— Ken Follett

286. “Even if you were taken out of school for want of money, Hugh. It’s no excuse for false values. The world is full of poor people who understand that love and friendship are more important than riches – Maisie Greenbourne.”

— Ken Follett

287. “Its job was to arrange the painless deaths of handicapped people who could not survive without costly care. It had done splendid work in the last couple of years, disposing of tens of thousands of useless people. The problem was that German public opinion was not yet sophisticated enough to understand the need for such deaths, so the program had to be kept quiet.”

— Ken Follett

288. “For years we’ve been campaigning against the rule that women can’t vote. That’s the barrier. Once it’s broken down, people will see further concessions as mere technicalities. It will be relatively easy to get the voting age lowered and other restrictions eased.”

— Ken Follett

289. “Boy did not see why two great nations such as England and Germany should go to war over a half-barbaric wasteland such as Poland.”

— Ken Follett

290. “The original eight cryptanalysts were supplemented, after Pearl Harbor, by some of the musicians from the band of the sunken battleship California. For reasons no one understood, musicians were good at decoding.”

— Ken Follett

291. “I don’t stoop to criticize you. I despise you. – Samuel Pilaster.”

— Ken Follett

292. “America is free because it has disrespectful newspapers and television shows to expose and shame presidents.”

— Ken Follett

293. “I’ve met the people who run Alabama. Believe me, they’re not that smart.”

— Ken Follett

294. “They were the same height and weight, and could wear each other’s clothes. But Lev had charm by the ton. He was unreliable and selfish, and he lived on the edge of the law, but women adored him. Grigori was honest and dependable, a hard worker and a serious thinker, and he was single. It would.”

— Ken Follett

295. “I like to create imaginary characters and events around a real historical situation. I want readers to feel: OK, this probably didn’t happen, but it might have.”

— Ken Follett

296. “Weapons seem to be the issue now, isn’t it?” “Aye,” said Billy. “The Germans and the Italians are supplying the rebels with guns and ammunition, as well as fighter planes and pilots. But no one is helping the elected Spanish government.”

— Ken Follett

297. “An apology is designed to make the offender feel okay so that he can do it again. Don’t be sorry.” Kincaid tried to gather the shreds.”

— Ken Follett

298. “It was an odd relationship, but then she was an extraordinary woman: a prioress who doubted much of what the church taught; an acclaimed healer who rejected medicine as practised by physicians; and a nun who made enthusiastic love to her man whenever she could get away with it. If I wanted a normal relationship, Merthin told himself, I should have picked a normal girl.”

— Ken Follett

299. “We’re all idealists,” said Lord Silverman, smoothing over the conflict like a good host. “That’s why we’re in politics. People without ideals don’t bother. But we have to confront the realities of elections and public opinion.”

— Ken Follett

300. “Fitz did not censor her mail but, as the head of the family, he had the right to read any letter addressed to a female relative living in his house. No respectable woman would object.”

— Ken Follett