Books can change your life. Some of the most influential people in our lives are characters we meet in books. — David McCullough Copy Share Image
When I began, I thought that the way one should work was to do all the research and then write the book. — David McCullough Copy Share Image
Every book is a new journey. I never felt I was an expert on a subject as I embarked on a project. — David McCullough Copy Share Image
My shorthand answer is that I try to write the kind of book that I would like to read. If I can… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
My next book is also set in the eighteenth century. Its about the Revolution, with the focus on the year 1776. Its… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
To go back and read Swift and Defoe and Samuel Johnson and Smollett and Pope - all those people we had to… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
Read. Read every chance you get. Read to keep growing. Read history. Read poetry. Read for pure enjoyment. Read a book called… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
When I'm reading for my own pleasure, I read things other than history or archival material. I read a lot of fiction.… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
I feel that what I do is a calling. I would pay to do what I do if I had to. I… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
It was a day and age that saw no reason why one could not learn whatever was required - learn vitally anything… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“History isn’t just something that ought to be taught, read, or encouraged only because it will make us better citizens. It will… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
People often ask me if I'm working on a book. That's not how I feel. I feel like I work in a… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
Once I discovered the endless fascination of doing the research and of doing the writing, I knew I had found what I… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
On Christmas morning when I was a child, my mother would leave a book wrapped at the foot of the bed, which… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“Truman had been sitting in a chair in the bedroom with several new books stacked on a table beside him. Did the… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
With the Truman book, I wrote the entire account of his experiences in World War I before going over to Europe to… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
People ask me when I start one of these projects, what is your theme? I havent the faintest idea. Thats why youre… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“it seems to me that one of the truths about history that needs to be made clear to a student or to… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“Many of them were familiar from childhood with the fables of La Fontaine. Or they had read Voltaire or Racine or Molière… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“There are a dozen books about McCarthy. Yet there is no biography of the senator who had the backbone to stand up… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“He acquired more and more books, books being an acknowledged extravagance he could seldom curb. (With one London bookseller he had placed… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
I'm very aware how many distractions the reader has in life today, how many good reasons there are to put the book… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
Nothing ever invented provides such sustenance, such infinite reward for time spent, as a good book. — David McCullough Copy Share Image
Read somewhat in the English poets every day. You will find them elegant, entertaining and constructive companions through your whole life. — David McCullough Copy Share Image
To shut yourself from history is to shut yourself off from say music or painting or the theatre, literature for the rest… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
Read. Read. Read. Read. Read great books. Read poetry, history, biography. Read the novels that have stood the test of time. And… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
One of the things about the arts that is so important is that in the arts you discover the only way to… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
There are people who are trying to write history for the general reader who can be quite tedious. That said, I do… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
There are innumerable writing problems in an extended work. One book took a little more than six years. You, the writer, change… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“Best of all, Galignani’s, the English bookstore and reading room, a favorite gathering place, stood across the street from the hotel. There… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
With the Truman book, I wrote the entire account of his experiences in World War I before going over to Europe to follow his… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“Steamboats by this time were becoming a familiar presence on the rivers and coastal waters of America, but not until 1838 did steam-powered ships… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
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… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“Even mighty states and kingdoms are not exempted. If we look into history, we shall find some nations rising from contemptible beginnings and spreading… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
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… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“Only TR openly declared his love for the job. “Nobody ever enjoyed the presidency as I did,” he boasted, and by all evidence that… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“s ships Phoenix and Rose, in the company of three tenders, cast off their moorings at Staten Island and started up the harbor under… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“a people may let a King fall, yet still remain a people, but if a King let his people slip from him, he is… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
Why limit yourself to the experience of your own relatively brief time on earth, according to your biological clock, when the whole realm of… — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“He worked at a plain, tall desk at which he wrote standing up or perched on a high stool,” — David McCullough Copy Share Image
“Nothing happens in isolation. Everything that happens has consequences. We” — David McCullough Copy Share Image
