Martha Gellhorn

Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival.

— Martha Gellhorn

All politicians are bores and liars and fakes. I talk to people.

— Martha Gellhorn

“This was not the velvet embracing desert sky at El Geneina; this was infinite space. The idea of no boundaries, no end,…

— Martha Gellhorn

I do not see myself as a footnote to someone else's life.

— Martha Gellhorn

the English don't go in for imagination: imagination is considered to be improper if not downright alarmist.

— Martha Gellhorn

My definition of what makes a journey wholly or partially horrible is boredom.

— Martha Gellhorn

Joseph McCarthy, the Junior Republican Senator from Wisconsin, ruled America like devil king for four years. His purges were an American mirror…

— Martha Gellhorn

Public opinion, though slow as lava, in the end forces governments towards more sanity, more justice. My heroes and heroines are all…

— Martha Gellhorn

I daresay I was the worst bed partner in five continents.

— Martha Gellhorn

Once you get a tyranny, you don't easily get rid of it. Much better to remember about eternal vigilance.

— Martha Gellhorn

In the last camp they all ate grass, until the authorities forbade them to pull it up. They were accustomed to having…

— Martha Gellhorn

Citizenship is a tough occupation which obliges the citizen to make his own informed opinion and stand by it.

— Martha Gellhorn

Americans did not acquire their fear neurosis as the result of a traumatic experience - war devasting their country, pestilence sweeping the…

— Martha Gellhorn

From the earliest wars of men to our last heart-breaking worldwide effort, all we could do was kill ourselves. Now we are…

— Martha Gellhorn

Why do people talk of the horrors of old age? It's great. I feel like a fine old car with the parts…

— Martha Gellhorn

“What was new to our ears these days, and thrilling to hear, was the steadiness and justice of those who spoke, the…

— Martha Gellhorn

the ends never justify the means because IT never ends.

— Martha Gellhorn

And though various organizations in America and England collected money and sent food parcels to these refugees, nothing was ever received by…

— Martha Gellhorn

Life is not long at all, never long enough, but days are very long indeed.

— Martha Gellhorn

If I were a first rate writer, I wouldn't mind a bit. What does depress me is this: it is so desperately…

— Martha Gellhorn

Thousand got away to other countries; thousands returned to Spain tempted by false promises of kindness. By the tens of thousands, these…

— Martha Gellhorn

I used to write letters to the wounded in the Palace Hotel, and I used to drive a station wagon with blood…

— Martha Gellhorn

You have to stop living in order to write.

— Martha Gellhorn

I didn't write. I just wandered about.

— Martha Gellhorn

The English are very proud of their Parliament, and week in, week out, century after century, they have pretty good cause to…

— Martha Gellhorn