David McCullough

“We who are residing in a foreign country, away from the immediate scene of action, perhaps can feel more deeply than those…

— David McCullough

To hold the reader's attention, you have to bring the person who's reading the book inside the experience of the time: What…

— David McCullough

I want people to see that all-important time in a different way-in the way it was. For of a number of reasons,…

— David McCullough

“Paris was a place where one wanted to walk, where to walk—flâner, as the French said—was practically a way of life. (“Ah!…

— David McCullough

I'm absolutely positive it's in our human nature to want to know about the past. The two most popular movies of all…

— David McCullough

“s ships Phoenix and Rose, in the company of three tenders, cast off their moorings at Staten Island and started up the…

— David McCullough

Read. Read every chance you get. Read to keep growing. Read history. Read poetry. Read for pure enjoyment. Read a book called…

— David McCullough

“Unfaithfulness in public stations is deeply criminal [he wrote to Abigail]. But there is no encouragement to be faithful. Neither profit, nor…

— David McCullough

“One of my favorite lines from an inaugural address is this—I wonder if you remember who said it? “How can we love…

— David McCullough

Housetops were covered with 'gazers'; all wharves that offered a view were jammed with people ... As British officers happily reminded one…

— David McCullough

“One had only to look at the map to see that Panama was the proper place for the canal. The route was…

— David McCullough

“Government is nothing more than the combined force of society or the united power of the multitude for the peace, order, safety,…

— David McCullough

“Nathaniel Willis, having spent his first week walking the city in drizzling rain, said that when the sun burst forth at last…

— David McCullough

“She was particularly curious about the Viginians, wondering if, as slaveholders, they had the necessary commitment to the cause of freedom. "I…

— David McCullough

Love of learning will never let you down. You can have a quest for money, you can have a quest for power,…

— David McCullough

I don't pick my presidents because they were great presidents. I'm not much interested in ranking presidents and who is the best…

— David McCullough

We should draw on our story, we should draw on our history. If we don't know who we are, if we don't…

— David McCullough

“When the world is storm-driven and the bad that happens and the worse that threatens are so urgent as to shut out…

— David McCullough

“The thought of going abroad makes my heart Leap," (Charles) Sumner wrote. "I feel, when I commune with myself about it, as…

— David McCullough

I can fairly be called an amateur because I do what I do, in the original sense of the word - for…

— David McCullough

Washington had performed his role to perfection. It was no enough that a leader look the part; by Washington's rules, he must…

— David McCullough

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…

— David McCullough

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumps, even though checkered by failure, then to take rank with…

— david mccullough

Little children can learn anything, just as they can learn a foreign language. The mind is so absorbent then. There ought to…

— David McCullough

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”—“The more things change, the more they remain the same”—was the oft-quoted observation of a…

— David McCullough

“Every line from you exhilarates my spirits and gives me a glow of pleasure, but your kind congratulations are solid comfort to…

— David McCullough

“But power is not the point, responsibility is the point and at the heart of responsibility always are moral choices. In what…

— David McCullough

“Read. Read all the time. Read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of…

— David McCullough

“Only TR openly declared his love for the job. “Nobody ever enjoyed the presidency as I did,” he boasted, and by all…

— David McCullough

The truth isn't just the facts. You can have all the facts imaginable and miss the truth, just as you can have…

— David McCullough

“As time would prove, he had written one of the great, enduring documents of the American Revolution. The constitution of the Commonwealth…

— David McCullough

I could not do what I do without the kindness, consideration, resourcefulness and work of librarians, particularly in public libraries... What started…

— David McCullough

“When a bill was put before the state legislature in Jefferson City that would have prohibited anyone who owned a saloon from…

— David McCullough

“The only way to compose myself and collect my thoughts," he wrote in his diary,"is to set down at my table, place…

— David McCullough

“Well, all the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get…

— David McCullough

“Washington insisted—possibly to rally his own resolve—that they must never lose sight of “the goodness of our cause.” Difficulties were not insurmountable.…

— David McCullough

Why limit yourself to the experience of your own relatively brief time on earth, according to your biological clock, when the whole…

— David McCullough

“Beware the purists, the doctrinaires. It has been by the empirical method largely, by way of trial and error, that we have…

— David McCullough

To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me it's an…

— David McCullough

Once I discovered the endless fascination of doing the research and of doing the writing, I knew I had found what I…

— David McCullough