Quotes by David McCullough

To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isnt just part of our civic responsibility. To me, its an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is.; NEH 2003 Jefferson Lecturer interview profile]

Morality only is eternal. All the rest is balloon and bubble from the cradle to the grave.

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.

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. Thats why its so hard., July/Aug. 2002, Vol. 23/No. 4)

No harms done to history by making it something someone would want to read., NEH Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities 2003)

History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.

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.

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.

Remove yourself, sir!

Nothing ever invented provides such sustenance, such infinite reward for time spent, as a good book.

Indeed, bribery, favoritism, and corruption in a great variety of forms were rampant not only in politics, but in all levels of society.

When a friend of Abigail and John Adams was killed at Bunker Hill, Abigails response was to write a letter to her husband and include these words, My bursting heart must find vent at my pen.

In an exhibition wherein paintings of nudes were commonplace, that of Madame Gautreau in her black evening dress was considered scandalously erotic. -from The Greater Journey

To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isnt just part of our civic responsibility. To me, its an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or musi

No harms done to history by making it something someone would want to

You cant be a full participant in our democracy if you dont know our history.

Youve got to marinate your head, in that time and culture.Youve got to become them.(Speaking about researching, and reading, and immersing yourself in History)

marinate your mind

To his own children he was at once the ultimate voice of authority and, when time allowed, their most exuberant companion. He never fired their imaginations or made them laugh as their mother could, but he was unfailingly interested in them, sympathetic, confiding, entering into their lives in ways few fathers ever do. It was a though he was in league with them.

[While writing history], Ive kept the most interesting company imaginable with people long gone. Some Ive come to know better than many I know in real life, since in real life we dont get to read other peoples mail.