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You Have To Get Inside The People You Are Writing About. You Have To Go Below The Surface. And That's To A Very Large Degree What All Writers Are Doing - They're Trying To Get Below The Surface. Whether It's In Fiction Or Poetry Or Writing History And Biography. Some People Make That Possible Because They Write Wonderful Letters And Diaries. And You Have To Sort Of Go Where The Material Is.

-David McCullough

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You Have To Get

David McCullough

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You Have To Get Inside The People You Are Writing About. You Have To Go Below The Surface. And That's To A Very Large Degree What All Writers Are Doing - They're Trying To Get Below The Surface. Whether It's In Fiction Or Poetry Or Writing History And Biography. Some People Make That Possible Because They Write Wonderful Letters And Diaries. And You Have To Sort Of Go Where The Material Is.

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If You Get Down About The State Of American Culture, Just Remember There Are Still More Public Libraries In This Country Than There Are Mcdonalds.

My Next Book Is Also Set In The Eighteenth Century. It's About The Revolution, With The Focus On The Year 1776. It's About Washington And The Army And The War. It's The Nadir, The Low Point Of The United States Of America.

Nothing Ever Invented Provides Such Sustenance, Such Infinite Reward For Time Spent, As A Good Book.

How Can We Know Who We Are And Where We Are Going If We Don't Know Anything About Where We Have Come From And What We Have Been Through, The Courage Shown, The Costs Paid, To Be Where We Are?

Our Obligations To Our Country Never Cease But With Our Lives. - John Adams

I Could Not Do What I Do Without The Kindness, Consideration, Resourcefulness And Work Of Librarians, Particularly In Public Libraries... What Started Me Writing History Happened Because Of Some Curiosity That I Had About Some Photographs I'd Seen In The Library Of Congress.

To Write Is To Think, And To Write Well Is To Think Well.

The Fulfilling Life, The Distinctive Life, The Relevant Life, Is An Achievement... To Do Whatever You Do For No Reason Other Than You Love It And Believe In Its Importance.

The Source Of Our Suffering Has Been Our Timidity. We Have Been Afraid To Think....let Us Dare To Read, Think, Speak, Write.

The Past After All Is Only Another Name For Someone Else's Present.

There Are People Who Are Trying To Write History For The General Reader Who Can Be Quite Tedious. That Said, I Do Feel In My Heart Of Hearts That If History Isn't Well Written, It Isn't Going To Be Read, And If It Isn't Read It's Going To Die.

Writing Is Thinking. To Write Well Is To Think Clearly. That's Why It's So Hard.

Real Success Is Finding Your Life Work In The Work That You Love. That's It. Don't Worry About Making A Living, Don't Worry About Popularity Or Fame. Make What You Do ... Count More Than What You Own.

Find Something To Do That You Love Because Then The Work Itself Is Always The Reward Not The Recompense. And If You Love What You're Doing You Probably Do Better At It Than Doing Something You Don't Love And Therefore You'll Be Compensated Appropriately.

I Would Pay To Do What I Do If I Had To.

In Fact, It Was The Largest Expeditionary Force Of The 18th Century. The Largest, Most Powerful Force Ever Set Forth From Britain Or Any Nation.

I'm Absolutely Positive It's In Our Human Nature To Want To Know About The Past. The Two Most Popular Movies Of All Time, While Not Historically Accurate, Are About Core Historic Events: 'gone With The Wind' And 'titanic.'

The Great Thing About The Arts Is That You Can Only Learn To Do It By Doing It.

Home Is Really Where Education Does Begin.

There Are Innumerable Writing Problems In An Extended Work. One Book Took A Little More Than Six Years. You, The Writer, Change In Six Years. The Life Around You Changes. Your Family Changes. They Grow Up. They Move Away. The World Is Changing. You're Also Learning More About The Subject. By The Time You're Writing The Last Chapters Of The Book, You Know Much More Than You Did When You Started At The Beginning.

The Most Interesting People Are Never Perfect.

My Wife, The Star I Steer By.

One Of The Things About The Arts That Is So Important Is That In The Arts You Discover The Only Way To Learn How To Do It Is By Doing It. You Can't Write By Reading A Book About It. The Only Way To Learn How To Write A Book Is To Sit Down And Try To Write A Book

Spotting Talent Is One Of The Essential Elements Of Great Leadership.

Great Leadership

Freedom Is Found Through The Portals Of Our Nation's Libraries.

I Think That A Good Education Ought To Be In Part The Idea That Ease And Joy Are Not Synonymous. Some Of The Most Fulfilling Pleasures Of Life Are To Be Found In Work - Found In Work You Love To Do, Work You Want To Do, Work That Makes You Want To Get Out Of Bed In The Morning.

History Is Not The Story Of Heroes Entirely. It Is Often The Story Of Cruelty And Injustice And Shortsightedness. There Are Monsters, There Is Evil, There Is Betrayal. That's Why People Should Read Shakespeare And Dickens As Well As History ~~ They Will Find The Best, The Worst, The Height Of Noble Attainment And The Depths Of Depravity.

Little Children Can Learn Anything, Just As They Can Learn A Foreign Language. The Mind Is So Absorbent Then. There Ought To Be A Real Program To Educate Teachers Who Want To Teach Grade School Children About History.

Take The Teacher Not The Course. Find Out Who The Great Professors Are - The Great Teachers - And Take Their Courses Because A Subject That You May Not Think You're Interested In May Turn Out To Be Infinitely Fascinating Because Of The Way It's Taught.

There's No Such Thing As A Foreseeable Future.

I'm Very Aware How Many Distractions The Reader Has In Life Today, How Many Good Reasons There Are To Put The Book Down.

There Are No People On Earth In Whom A Spirit Of Enthusiastic Zeal Is So Readily Kindled, And Burns So Remarkably, As Americans

Only Those Who [do] Nothing [make] No Mistakes.

Let The Children Have Their Night Of Fun And Laughter. Let The Gifts Of Father Christmas Delight Their Play. Let Us Grown-ups Share To The Full In Their Unstinted Pleasures Before We Turn Again To The Stern Task And The Formidable Years That Lie Before Us, Resolved That, By Our Sacrifice And Daring, These Same Children Shall Not Be Robbed Of Their Inheritance Or Denied Their Right To Live In A Free And Decent World." Winston Churchill Christmas Eve Message, 1941 As Printed In "in The Dark Streets Shineth.

Curiosity Is What Separates Us From The Cabbages. It's Accelerative. The More We Know, The More We Want To Know.

People Often Ask Me If I'm Working On A Book. That's Not How I Feel. I Feel Like I Work In A Book. It's Like Putting Myself Under A Spell. And This Spell, If You Will, Is So Real To Me That If I Have To Leave My Work For A Few Days, I Have To Work Myself Back Into The Spell When I Come Back. It's Almost Like Hypnosis.

Unlike The People You See In Mathew Brady's Photographs From The Civil War, The Men And Women Of The Revolution Seem More Like Characters In A Costume Pageant. And It's A Pageant In Which The Performers Are All Handsome As Stage Actors, With Uniforms And Dress That Are Always Costume Perfect.

First Of All, You Can Make The Argument That There's No Such Thing As The Past. Nobody Lived In The Past.

The Evil Of Technology Was Not Technology Itself, Lindbergh Came To See After The War, Not In Airplanes Or The Myriad Contrivances Of Modern Technical Igenuity, But In The Extent To Which They Can Distance Us From Our Better Moral Nature, Or Sense Of Personal Accountability.

Your Education Never Stops And College Is Just The Beginning. You Come Out Of College With A Huge Advantage In That You've Ideally And More Times Than Not You've Come Out With A Love Of Learning And That's What Matters Above All.

Nothing Ever Invented Can You A Bigger Life Than A Book.

I Write On The Typewriter. I Like It Because I Like The Feeling Of Making Something With My Hands. I Like Pressing The Key And A Letter Comes Up And Is Printed On A Piece Of Paper. I Can Understand That.

I Am Adamant That We Must Not Cut Back On Funding Of The Teaching Of The Arts In The Schools: Music, Painting, Theater, Dance, All Of It. The Great Thing About The Arts Is That The Only Way You Learn How To Do It Is By Doing It.

I'm Drawn Particularly To Stories That Evolve Out Of The Character Of The Protagonist.

Just Imagine If In His Inaugural Address John F. Kennedy Had Said, 'ask Not What Your Country Can, You Know, Do For You, But What You Can, Like, Do For Your Country Actually.

And Read… Read All The Time… Read As A Matter Of Principle, As A Matter Of Self-respect. Read As A Nourishing Staple Of Life.

I Just Thank My Father And Mother, My Lucky Stars, That I Had The Advantage Of An Education In The Humanities.

However Little Television You Watch, Watch Less.

Housetops Were Covered With 'gazers'; All Wharves That Offered A View Were Jammed With People ... As British Officers Happily Reminded One Another, It Was The Largest Fleet Ever Seen In American Waters. In Fact It Was The Largest Expeditionary Force Of The 18th Century, The Largest, Most Powerful Force Ever Sent Forth By Britain Or Any Other Nation.

My Shorthand Answer Is That I Try To Write The Kind Of Book That I Would Like To Read. If I Can Make It Clear And Interesting And Compelling To Me, Then I Hope Maybe It Will Be For The Reader.

I Want People To See That All-important Time In A Different Way-in The Way It Was. For Of A Number Of Reasons, Including The Absence Of Photographs, We Tend To See The Men And Women Of The Revolution As Not Quite Real. And We Have Far Too Little Sense Of What They Suffered.

Washington Was A Man Of Exceptional, Almost Excessive Self-command, Rarely Permitting Himself Any Show Of Discouragement Or Despair.

The More Adams Thought About The Future Of His Country, The More Convinced He Became That It Rested On Education. Before Any Great Things Are Accomplished, He Wrote To A Correspondent, A Memorable Change Must Be Made In The System Of Education And Knowledge Must Become So General As To Raise The Lower Ranks Of Society Nearer To The Higher. The Education Of A Nation Instead Of Being Confined To A Few Schools And Universities For The Instruction Of The Few, Must Become The National Care And Expense For The Formation Of The Many.

Read Somewhat In The English Poets Every Day. You Will Find Them Elegant, Entertaining And Constructive Companions Through Your Whole Life.

A Nation That Forgets Its Past Can Function No Better Than An Individual With Amnesia.

People Are So Helpful. People Will Stop What They're Doing To Show You Something, To Walk With You Through A Section Of The Town, Or Explain How A Suspension Bridge Really Works.

Climb The Mountain So You Can See The World, Not So The World Can See You.

Famous Motivational

History Isn't Just What Happened, But What Happened To Whom And Why And What Would Have Been Different If The Cast Of Characters Had Been Different.

When You Start To Write, Things Begin To Come Into Focus In A Way They Don't When You're Not Writing. It's A Very Good Way To Find Out How Much You Don't Know Because You Learn Specifically What You Need To Know That You Don't Know At The Moment By Writing.

If The Attitude Of The Teacher Toward The Material Is Positive, Enthusiastic, Committed And Excited, The Students Get That. If The Teacher Is Bored, Students Get That And They Get Bored, Quickly, Instinctively.

The Talent, Including The Talent For History - And I Do Think There Are People Who Just Have A Talent For It, The Way You Have A Talent For Public Speaking Or Music Or Whatever - It Shouldn't Be Allowed To Lie Dormant. It Should Be Brought Alive.

George P. A. Healy; "i Knew No One In France, I Was Utterly Ignorant Of The Language, I Did Not Know What I Should Do When Once There; But I Was Not Yet One-and-twenty, And I Had A Great Stock Of Courage, Of Inexperience—which Is Sometimes A Great Help—and A Strong Desire To Be My Very Best.

The First Of All Qualities Of A General Is Courage.

I Work Very Hard On The Writing, Writing And Rewriting And Trying To Weed Out The Lumber.

Morality Only Is Eternal. All The Rest Is Balloon And Bubble From The Cradle To The Grave.

We All Know The Old Expression, "i'll Work My Thoughts Out On Paper." There's Something About The Pen That Focuses The Brain In A Way That Nothing Else Does. That Is Why We Must Have More Writing In The Schools, More Writing In All Subjects, Not Just In English Classes.

Courage Is Contagious. If A Leader Shows Courage, Others Get The Idea.

May None But Honest And Wise Men Ever Rule Under This Roof.

The More We See The Founders As Humans The More We Can Understand Them.

Any Nation That Expects To Be Ignorant And Free," Jefferson Said, "expects What Never Was And Never Will Be." And If The Gap Between The Educated And The Uneducated In America Continues To Grow As It Is In Our Time, As Fast As Or Faster Than The Gap Between The Rich And The Poor, The Gap Between The Educated And The Uneducated Is Going To Be Of Greater Consequence And The More Serious Threat To Our Way Of Life. We Must Not, By Any Means, Misunderstand That.

To This Noble End The Delegates Had Pledged Their Lives, Their Fortunes, And Their Sacred Honor.

To Hold The Reader's Attention, You Have To Bring The Person Who's Reading The Book Inside The Experience Of The Time: What Was It Like To Have Been Alive Then? What Were These People Like As Human Beings?

When A Friend Of Abigail And John Adams Was Killed At Bunker Hill, Abigail's Response Was To Write A Letter To Her Husband And Include These Words, "my Bursting Heart Must Find Vent At My Pen.

I Had Been Writing For About Twelve Years. I Knew Pretty Well How You Could Find Things Out, But I Had Never Been Trained In An Academic Way How To Go About The Research.

I Lament The Want Of A Liberal Education. I Feel The Mist Of Ignorance To Surround Me - Nathanael Greene

There Is A Human Longing To Go Back To Other Times. We All Know How When We Were Children We Asked Our Parents, "what Was It Like When You Were A Kid?" I Think It Probably Has Something To Do With Our Survival As A Species.

We Still Dislike Hypocrites. It's A Very American Characteristic. We Still Like People Who Have Ideas And Who Are Willing To Stand Up For What They Believe In. We're Very Forgiving Of Failures And Very Willing To Give People A Second And Third Chance If They Mean To Do Better And Are Sorry For What They've Done.

Every Book Is A New Journey. I Never Felt I Was An Expert On A Subject As I Embarked On A Project.

My Strong Feeling Is That We Must Learn More About How We Learn. I'm Convinced That We Learn By Struggling To Find The Solution To A Problem On Our Own With Some Guidance, But Getting In And Getting Our Hands Dirty And Working It.

It Was An Utterly Phenomenal Achievement.

On Christmas Morning When I Was A Child, My Mother Would Leave A Book Wrapped At The Foot Of The Bed, Which Was A Hint That Santa Had Come. It Was Also Her Way Of Keeping Us In Bed A Little Longer Before We Went Downstairs. So I've Always Associated Books With Happiness And Gifts. And They Are. I Can't Get Enough Of Them.

You Have Overburdened Your Argument With Ostentatious Erudition.

Washington Had Performed His Role To Perfection. It Was No Enough That A Leader Look The Part; By Washington's Rules, He Must Know How To Act It With Self-command And Precision.

To Shut Yourself From History Is To Shut Yourself Off From Say Music Or Painting Or The Theatre, Literature For The Rest Of Your Life. It Would Be To Cheat Yourself Of The Pleasures Of Life.

Once I Discovered The Endless Fascination Of Doing The Research And Of Doing The Writing, I Knew I Had Found What I Wanted To Do In My Life. Every Book Is A New Journey. I Never Felt I Was An Expert On A Subject As I Embarked On A Project.

History Is A Guide To Navigation In Perilous Times. History Is Who We Are And Why We Are The Way We Are.

You Can't Love What You Don't Know Much About. You Can't Convince, Stimulate, Hold The Attention, Teach, If You Don't Know What You're Talking About.

There Is Only One Person Who Can Measure Your Success. That Person Is You.

Congratulations

We Are Raising A Generation Of Young Americans Who Are, To A Very Large Degree, Historically Illiterate. It's Not Their Faults. There's No Problem About Enlisting Their Interest In History. None. The Problem Is The Teachers So Often Have No History In Their Background.

I've Always Been Dissatisfied, I Know That. But Lately I Find That I Reek Of Discontentment. It Fills My Throat, And It Floods My Brain. And Sometimes I Fear There Is No Longer A Dream, But Only The Discontentment.

Real Success Is Finding Your Lifework In The Work That You Love.

Why Limit Yourself To The Experience Of Your Own Relatively Brief Time On Earth, According To Your Biological Clock, When The Whole Realm Of The Human Experience Reaching Back Infinitely Far Is Available To You?

Each Generation, We Peel Back Biases That Have Blinded Those Before Us. The More We Know About The Past Enables Us To Ask Richer And More Provocative Questions About Who We Are Today.

You Can't Learn To Play The Piano Without Playing The Piano, You Can't Learn To Write Without Writing, And, In Many Ways, You Can't Learn To Think Without Thinking. Writing Is Thinking. To Write Well Is To Think Clearly. That's Why It's So Hard.

If We Think Back Through Our Own Lives, The Subjects That You Liked Best In School Almost Certainly Were Taught By The Teachers You Liked Best. And The Teacher You Liked Best Was The Teacher Who Cared About The Subject She Taught.

The Preparations Were Elaborate And Mammoth In Scale, And Washington Threw Himself Into The Effort, Demanding That Not An Hour Be Lost.

I Love To Go To The Places Where Things Happen. I Like To Walk The Walk And See How The Light Falls And What Winter Feels Like.

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read Great Books. Read Poetry, History, Biography. Read The Novels That Have Stood The Test Of Time. And Read Closely.

Nobody Ever Lived In The Past.

The Pull, The Attraction Of History, Is In Our Human Nature. What Makes Us Tick? Why Do We Do What We Do? How Much Is Luck The Deciding Factor?

My Love Is To Tell A Story But I Like Stories That Evolve From Character, From The Nature Of The Individuals Involved.

You Can't Be A Full Participant In Our Democracy If You Don't Know Our History.

Since September 11, It Seems To Me That Never In Our Lifetime, Except Possibly In The Early Stages Of World War Ii, Has It Been Clearer That We Have As A Source Of Strength, A Source Of Direction, A Source Of Inspiration - Our Story.

Develop And Protect A Moral Sensibility And Demonstrate The Character To Apply It. Dream Big. Work Hard. Think For Yourself. Love Everything You Love, Everyone You Love, With All Your Might. And Do So, Please, With A Sense Of Urgency, For Every Tick Of The Clock Subtracts From Fewer And Fewer...

We Must Not Think Of Learning As Only What Happens In Schools. It Is An Extended Part Of Life. The Most Readily Available Resource For All Of Life Is Our Public Library System.

I Feel Very Strongly That History Is About Everything. It Isn't Just About Politics Or The Military Or Social Issues. If Art, Music, Engineering, Science, Medicine, Finance, The World Of Architecture And Technology - If Those Are Left Out, Then You're Not Getting A Full Sense Of The Human Condition. History Is Human And We Human Beings Are Involved In All Kinds Of Things And That's Part Of Our Humanity.

I Think That We Need History As Much As We Need Bread Or Water Or Love.

When The Founders Wrote About Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness, They Didn't Mean Longer Vacations And More Comfortable Hammocks. They Meant The Pursuit Of Learning. The Pursuit Of Improvement And Excellence. In Hard Work Is Happiness.

Pursuit Of Happiness

You Can Make The Argument That There's No Such Thing As The Past. Nobody Lived In The Past. They Lived In The Present. It Is Their Present, Not Our Present, And They Don't Know How It's Going To Come Out. They Weren't Just Like We Are Because They Lived In That Very Different Time. You Can't Understand Them If You Don't Understand How They Perceived Reality.

History Is Not Just About Dates And Quotations. And It's Not Just About Politics, The Military And Social Issues, Though Much Of It Of Course Is About That. It's About Everything. It's About Life History. It's Human. And We Have To See It That Way. We Have To Teach It That Way. We Have To Read It That Way. It's About Art, Music, Literature, Money, Science, Love - The Human Experience.

I Feel That History Is In Many Ways The Most Important Of All Subjects Because It Is About Everything And Because It's About Who We Are And How We Came To Be The Way We Are.

You Have To Get Inside The People You Are Writing About. You Have To Go Below The Surface. And That's To A Very Large Degree What All Writers Are Doing - They're Trying To Get Below The Surface. Whether It's In Fiction Or Poetry Or Writing History And Biography. Some People Make That Possible Because They Write Wonderful Letters And Diaries. And You Have To Sort Of Go Where The Material Is.

History Is About Life. It's Awful When The Life Is Squeezed Out Of It And There's No Flavor Left, No Uncertainties, No Horsing Around. It Always Disturbed Me How Many Biographers Never Gave Their Subjects A Chance To Eat. You Can Tell A Lot About People By How They Eat, What They Eat, And What Kind Of Table Manners They Have.

Exercise Free Will And Creative, Independent Thought Not For The Satisfactions They Will Bring You, But For The Good They Will Do Others, The Rest Of The 6.8 Billion–and Those Who Will Follow Them. And Then You Too Will Discover The Great And Curious Truth Of The Human Experience Is That Selflessness Is The Best Thing You Can Do For Yourself. The Sweetest Joys Of Life, Then, Come Only With The Recognition That You’re Not Special. Because Everyone Is.

With The Situation As Gray As It Could Be, No One Was More Conspicuous In His Calm Presence Of Mind Than Washington. They Must Be "cool But Determined" He Had Told The Men Before The Battle, When Spirits Were High. Now, In The Face Of Catastrophe, He Was Demonstrating What He Meant By His Own Example. Whatever Anger Or Torment Or Despair He Felt, He Kept To Himself.

Presence Of Mind

Love Of Learning Will Never Let You Down. You Can Have A Quest For Money, You Can Have A Quest For Power, You Can Have A Quest For Fame And They Are Sometimes Gratifying And Sometimes Self-destructive. The Love Of Learning Is Always Gratifying And Never Self-destructive. The More Educated, The More Cultivated A Society Becomes, Better Off Is Everybody.

No Harm's Done To History By Making It Something Someone Would Want To Read.

Read. Read Every Chance You Get. Read To Keep Growing. Read History. Read Poetry. Read For Pure Enjoyment. Read A Book Called Life On A Little Known Planet. It's About Insects. It Will Make You Feel Better.

Never Assume That People In Positions Of Responsibility Are Behaving Responsibly.

I Don't Pick My Presidents Because They Were Great Presidents. I'm Not Much Interested In Ranking Presidents And Who Is The Best And Who Is The Worst. I Am Much More Inclined To Be Interested In Them If They Had An Interesting Life And If They Were A Complete Person - And By That I Mean They Also Had Flaws And Failings.

One Of The Regrets Of My Life Is That I Did Not Study Latin. I'm Absolutely Convinced, The More I Understand These Eighteenth-century People, That It Was That Grounding In Greek And Latin That Gave Them Their Sense Of The Classic Virtues: The Classic Ideals Of Honor, Virtue, The Good Society, And Their Historic Examples Of What They Could Try To Live Up To.

I Can Fairly Be Called An Amateur Because I Do What I Do, In The Original Sense Of The Word - For Love, Because I Love It. On The Other Hand, I Think That Those Of Us Who Make Our Living Writing History Can Also Be Called True Professionals.

Books Can Change Your Life. Some Of The Most Influential People In Our Lives Are Characters We Meet In Books.

It Was A Day And Age That Saw No Reason Why One Could Not Learn Whatever Was Required - Learn Vitally Anything - By The Close Study Of Books.

I Think It's Important To Remember That These Men Are Not Perfect. If They Were Marble Gods, What They Did Wouldn't Be So Admirable. The More We See The Founders As Humans The More We Can Understand Them.

I Feel That What I Do Is A Calling. I Would Pay To Do What I Do If I Had To. I Will Never Live Long Enough To Do The Work I Want To Do: The Books I Would Like To Write, The Ideas I Would Like To Explore.

...had Proven Himself A Leader Of Remarkable Ability, A Man Not Only Of Enterprising Ideas, But With The Staying Power To Carry Them Out.

I Often Think Of That When I Hear People Say That They Haven't Time To Read.

You've Got To Marinate Your Head, In That Time And Culture. You've Got To Become Them." (speaking About Researching, And Reading, And Immersing Yourself In History)

Immersing Yourself

I Love All Sides Of The Work But That Doesn't Mean It Isn't Hard.

We Are All What We Are, In Large Degree, Because Of Others Who Have Helped, Coached, Taught, Counseled, Who Set A Standard By Example, Who've Taken An Interest In Our Interests, Opened Doors, Opened Our Minds, Helped Us See, Who Gave Encouragement When We Needed It, Who Reprimanded Or Prodded When We Needed It, And At Critical Moments, Inspired.

The Truth Isn't Just The Facts. You Can Have All The Facts Imaginable And Miss The Truth, Just As You Can Have Facts Missing Or Some Wrong, And Reach The Larger Truth.

If Everyone Is Special, Then No One Is. If Everyone Gets A Trophy, Trophies Become Meaningless.

We Should Draw On Our Story, We Should Draw On Our History. If We Don't Know Who We Are, If We Don't Know How We Became What We Are, We're Going To Start Suffering From All The Obvious Detrimental Effects Of Amnesia.

A Leader Must Look And Act The Part.

I Think The Public Library System Is One Of The Most Amazing American Institutions. Free For Everybody. If You Ever Get The Blues About The Status Of American Culture There Are Still More Public Libraries Than There Are Mcdonald's. During The Worst Of The Depression Not One Public Library Closed Their Doors.

I Feel That As Much As I Enjoy Loafing, There Is Something Higher For Which To Live.

When I'm Reading For My Own Pleasure, I Read Things Other Than History Or Archival Material. I Read A Lot Of Fiction. I'm Very Fond Of Mysteries.

According To Adams, Jefferson Proposed That He, Adams, Do The Writing [pf The Declaration Of Independence], But That He Declined, Telling Jefferson He Must Do It. Why?" Jefferson Asked, As Adams Would Recount. Reasons Enough," Adams Said. What Can Be Your Reasons?" Reason First: You Are A Virginian And A Virginian Ought To Appear At The Head Of This Business. Reason Second: I Am Obnoxious, Suspected And Unpopular. You Are Very Much Otherwise. Reason Third: You Can Write Ten Times Better Than I Can.

To Me History Ought To Be A Source Of Pleasure. It Isn't Just Part Of Our Civic Responsibility. To Me It's An Enlargement Of The Experience Of Being Alive, Just The Way Literature Or Art Or Music Is.

America Faces An Enemy Who Believes In Enforced Ignorance. And All That We Stand For Is The Open Mind, The Generous Spirit, The Ideal Of Tolerance, Freedom, Education, Opportunity.

They Must Be Cool But Determined...he Threatened Instant Death To Any Man Who Showed Cowardice.

He Had Kept His Head, Kept His Health And His Strength, Bearing Up Under A Weight Of Work And Worry That Only A Few Could Have Carried.

You Have To Have Wisdom And Knowledge As Well As Virtue To Preserve Your Rights And Liberties.

I Think It Is One Of The Most Extraordinary Elections, A Turning Point For Our Country And For The World. That Remarkable Young Man [barack Obama] Has Kept His Demeanor, Kept His Temperament And Has Shown A Power To Inspire. I See What Energy That He Has Inspired Among The Young. Well, It Inspires Us Old Goats Too.

The Year 1776, Celebrated As The Birth Year Of The Nation And For The Signing Of The Declaration Of Independence, Was For Those Who Carried The Fight For Independence Forward A Year Of All-too-few Victories, Of Sustained Suffering, Disease, Hunger, Desertion, Cowardice, Disillusionment, Defeat, Terrible Discouragement, And Fear, As They Would Never Forget, But Also Of Phenomenal Courage And Bedrock Devotion To Country, And That, Too They Would Never Forget.

It Would Be The Most Crucial Day Of The Entire War.

I Love Dickens. I Love The Way He Sets A Scene.

Napoleon Could Never Imagine That Some People Loved Their Country As Much As He Loved His Own.

The Title Always Comes Last. What I Really Work Hard On Is The Beginning. Where Do You Begin? In What Tone Do You Begin? I Almost Have To Have A Scene In My Mind.

With The Truman Book, I Wrote The Entire Account Of His Experiences In World War I Before Going Over To Europe To Follow His Tracks In The War. When I Got There, There Was A Certain Satisfaction In Finding I Had It Right - It Does Look Like That.

Yes, This Is A Dangerous Time. Yes, This Is A Time Full Of Shadows And Fear. But We Have Been Through Worse Before And We Have Faced More Difficult Days Before. We Have Shown Courage And Determination, And Skillful And Inventive And Courageous And Committed Responses To Crisis Before.

In Time I Began To Understand That It's When You Start Writing That You Really Find Out What You Don't Know And Need To Know.

I Think It's Best To Pick A Biographical Subject Who Lives To A Ripe Old Age. Older People Tend To Relax And Speak Their Minds. They're Dropping Some Of The Masks That They've Been Wearing. There's A Candor.

There's An Awful Temptation To Just Keep On Researching. There Comes A Point Where You Just Have To Stop, And Start Writing.

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