As George Orwell wisely observed a generation later, the only way swiftly to end a war is to lose it.

- Max Hastings

People who get on at school are the ones who play by the rules, and no one's going to get far in later life playing by the system.

- Max Hastings

We're taking part in a divine comedy and we should realise that the play is always a comedy, in that we're all ultimately ridiculous.

- Max Hastings

A Tory government with a decent mandate seems the only hope of tackling the fiscal catastrophe responsibly.

- Max Hastings

There was no doubt that in the early and mid-eighties that many of us in broadsheet newspapers felt that we still had a responsibility to try to prot…

- Max Hastings

You cannot write down how people are good; you just know it, and cannot get away from it.

- Max Hastings

The only redemptive feature of war is the brotherhood which it forges.

- Max Hastings

If you can't get a job as a pianist in a brothel, you become a royal reporter.

- Max Hastings

Lots of us when we're children believe 'oh well, if the world knew us as we really are, they'd know what wonderful, clever, brilliant, charming peopl…

- Max Hastings