The first two volumes of his History of the English Speaking Peoples were published in 1956 and the remaining two volumes over the next two years...

Churchill, Grosvenor House, London, 2 November, 1949 copyright: Churchill Archives Centre...

[T]he shorter words of a language are usually the more ancient ... Their meaning is more ingrained in the national character and they appeal with greater force to simple understanding.

Nothing makes a man more reverent than a library.

English literature is a glorious inheritance which is open to all – there are no barriers, no coupons, and no restrictions. In the English language and in its great writers there are great riches and treasures, of which, of course, the Bible and Shakespeare stand along on the highest platform.

I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to end and enjoyed it all. I scribbled all my opinions on the margins of the pages ... From Gibbon I went to Macauley. I had learnt The Lays of Ancient Rome by heart, and loved them; and of course I knew he had written a history; but I had never read a page of it ... I accepted all Macauley wrote as gospel, and I was grieved to read his harsh judgements upon the Great Duke of Marlborough.

Whilst writing, a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy, then an amusement, then it becomes a mistress and then it becomes a master and then it becomes a tyrant and, in the last stage, just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.

Let him go to hell – as soon as there’s a vacant passage.

Few people practice what they preach, and no one less so than Mr Bernard Shaw ... He is at once an acquisitive capitalist and a sincere Communist.