David McCullough

“We can’t guarantee success [in this war] but we can do something better. We can deserve it.”

— David McCullough

“the Reverend Chapman wrote later. “I think none was afraid to meet God, but we all felt willing to put it off…

— David McCullough

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read great books. Read poetry, history, biography. Read the novels that have stood the test of time. And…

— David McCullough

My love is to tell a story but I like stories that evolve from character, from the nature of the individuals involved.

— David McCullough

“It is in Paris that the beating of Europe’s heart is felt. Paris is the city of cities." - Victor Hugo”

— David McCullough

“No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read." ( The Course of Human Events , NEH…

— David McCullough

He had kept his head, kept his health and his strength, bearing up under a weight of work and worry that only…

— David McCullough

“Washington had been the one member of the family ever to go off and work with John Roebling at bridgebuilding.”

— David McCullough

We all know the old expression, "I'll work my thoughts out on paper." There's something about the pen that focuses the brain…

— David McCullough

“a people may let a King fall, yet still remain a people, but if a King let his people slip from him,…

— David McCullough

“It might never have happened. That’s among the most important lessons of history . . . and of life. There is so much around us…

— David McCullough

To go back and read Swift and Defoe and Samuel Johnson and Smollett and Pope - all those people we had to…

— David McCullough

There is a human longing to go back to other times. We all know how when we were children we asked our…

— David McCullough

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…

— David McCullough

The talent, including the talent for history - and I do think there are people who just have a talent for it,…

— David McCullough

The evil of technology was not technology itself, Lindbergh came to see after the war, not in airplanes or the myriad contrivances…

— David McCullough

“landmarks were “a little shabby.” Half the gilding was gone from the dome of Les Invalides, where Napoleon was buried. The same…

— David McCullough

“Years later, a friend told Orville that he and his brother would always stand as an example of how far Americans with…

— David McCullough

“There was a burst of applause when George Washington entered and walked to the dais. More applause followed on the appearance of…

— David McCullough

“What was surprising--and would largely be forgotten as time went on--was how well Adams had done. Despite the malicious attacks on him,…

— David McCullough

“Many of them were familiar from childhood with the fables of La Fontaine. Or they had read Voltaire or Racine or Molière…

— David McCullough

“Roosevelt loved the subtleties of human relations...He was sensitive to nuances in a way that Harry Truman never was and never would…

— David McCullough

“At one point during a meeting in Truman’s office, Silver had hammered on Truman’s desk and shouted at him. “Terror and Silver…

— David McCullough

“To the majority of those on the job his presence had been magical. Years afterward, the wife of one of the steam-shovel…

— David McCullough

“Many men are better fitted for improving chances offered them than in turning up the chances themselves.”

— David McCullough

“The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth,” Paine had written. “Everything that is right or reasonable pleads for separation.”

— David McCullough

History isn't just what happened, but what happened to whom and why and what would have been different if the cast of…

— David McCullough

“Modern industries are handling the forces of nature on a stupendous scale. . . . Woe to the people who trust these powers to the…

— David McCullough

“He worked at a plain, tall desk at which he wrote standing up or perched on a high stool,”

— David McCullough

If you get down about the state of American culture, just remember there are still more public libraries in this country than…

— David McCullough

It was a day and age that saw no reason why one could not learn whatever was required - learn vitally anything…

— David McCullough

Yes, this is a dangerous time. Yes, this is a time full of shadows and fear. But we have been through worse…

— David McCullough

I've always been dissatisfied, I know that. But lately I find that I reek of discontentment. It fills my throat, and it…

— David McCullough

Each generation, we peel back biases that have blinded those before us. The more we know about the past enables us to…

— David McCullough

We are raising a generation of young Americans who are, to a very large degree, historically illiterate. It's not their faults. There's…

— David McCullough

“If Preston Brooks with his attack had brought him near death, was it not his old friend Appleton who had observed, “When…

— David McCullough

“Sadly, too many today take for granted public schools, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, equality before the law, forgetting that these…

— David McCullough

“Steamboats by this time were becoming a familiar presence on the rivers and coastal waters of America, but not until 1838 did…

— David McCullough

“On prend l’essence de la vie dans la ville.” “One captures the essence of life in the city,” the French said. To…

— David McCullough

“Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard." (Interview with NEH chairman Bruce Cole, Humanities…

— David McCullough