Bomb: The Race To Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon Quotes
"This is a big story. It’s the story of the creation—and theft—of the deadliest weapon ever invented."
A repulsively good little boy," Oppenheimer said of himself. "My life as a child did not prepare me for the fact that the world is full of cruel and bitter things.
Ask me a question in Latin," he’d say, "and I’ll answer you in Greek.
"I need physics more than friends," Oppenheimer once told his brother.
"One day man will release and control its almost infinite power. We cannot prevent him from doing so and can only hope that he will not use it exclusively in blowing up his next-door neighbor."
"Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium from the Czechoslovakian mines, which she has taken over."
"He took me to the majestic bluffs over the Hudson River on which Hyde Park, his family home, stands," Churchill remembered.
In starting and waging a war," Hitler told his generals, "it is not right that matters, but victory. Close your hearts to pity! Act brutally! The stronger man is right!
"You gave the right declaration of war!" Adolf Hitler raved to the Japanese ambassador in Berlin.
If I can’t do the job," said Groves, "no one man can.
"Everyone sort of regarded him, very affectionately, as being sort of nuts."
I was not happy with the information," Groves grumbled about what he’d learned so far. "In fact, I was horrified.
This is the only friend you can rely on," said their instructor, holding up a pistol. "Treat him properly, and he’ll take care of you.
"He seems like a chap who’s never breathed any fresh air," said another.
If you really do form two such fragments," she said, "they would be pushed apart with great energy.
The notion of disappearing into the New Mexico desert for an indeterminate period," he recalled, "disturbed a good many scientists.
The trouble," a friend said, "is that Oppie is so quick on the trigger intellectually, that he puts the other guy at a disadvantage.
"The scenes speed around the world, from secret labs to commando raids to street-corner spy meetings."
He invited me to feel his biceps," Churchill recalled, "saying that a famous prize-fighter had envied them. This was reassuring.
"Traveling a bit more slowly, [neutrons] would be more likely to hit the uranium atoms and cause fission."
"If the pile should explode, no one knew just how far the danger would extend."
"Fermi sat in a chair on the balcony. He looked over his blinking monitors, then ordered the first cadmium rod to be lifted out of the pile."
"Only one cadmium rod remained in the pile; Fermi’s team called it the 'zip' rod."
"Fermi’s smile got bigger. 'The pile has gone critical,' he said."
"The chain reaction was going and would continue doubling in power every two minutes until he shut it down."
"Everyone began to wonder why he didn’t shut the pile off."
"Finally Fermi said, 'Zip in!' The cadmium rod dropped back into the pile, followed by the other rods. The clicking machines went quiet."
"For some time, we had known that we were about to unlock a giant," remembered Eugene Wigner.
"Still, we could not escape an eerie feeling when we knew we had actually done it."
"Then, unsure what else to do, everyone began to clap."
"The greatest military achievement in all history," praised Douglas MacArthur.
You have a fifty-fifty chance of doing the job," Wilson said, "and only a fair chance of escaping.
"The great seven-story factory building bulked large on the landscape," Haukelid later said.
"We slipped and fell, grabbing on to rocks and blocks of ice," Ronneberg reported.
"Not a single one of the Norwegians was ever caught."
"The rumors in Santa Fe kept flying. Something big was obviously going on."
"The object of the project is to produce a practical military weapon in the form of a bomb in which the energy is released by a fast-neutron chain reaction."
"The more senior scientists watched while Hall worked the uranium into place."
"He shared a common belief that the horrors of war would bring our various leaders to their senses and usher in a period of peace and harmony."
"The Soviet Union is the only country that can be trusted with such a terrible thing," said Hall.
"Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
"The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun."
"I’ll never forget the way he stepped out of the car."
"If I live a hundred years, I’ll never quite get these few minutes out of my mind."
"I thought Tibbets was never going to pull it off."
"We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city."
"The fear of a German atom bomb development superior to ours still dominated our thinking."
"We are still at war. It must be clear to you that I cannot tell anything which I promised to keep secret."
"We have just dropped a new bomb on Japan which has more power than twenty thousand tons of TNT."
"The use of a second bomb the same week was calculated to indicate that we had an endless supply of this super weapon for use against one Japanese city after another."
"It was just as though one was continuing to blow up an already bulging toy balloon, wondering, 'Will it burst now? Will it burst now?'"
"I cannot endure the thought of letting my people suffer any longer. The time has come when we must bear the unbearable."
"He was very nervous, and I was inwardly not too calm myself."
"Meet openly as friends, and speak of music, and other matters, but not speak of war."
"The peoples of this world must unite or they will perish."
"If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima."