David McCullough quote: "People ask me when I start one of these projects, what is your theme? I haven’t the faintest idea. That’s why you’re writing the book, it seems to me, to find out. To me, it’s a journey. It’s an adventure. It’s traveling in a country you’ve never been in and everything is going to be new, and because of that, vivid. And don’t make up your mind too soon. Let it be an experience."

To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To ...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

A nation that forgets its past can function no better than an individual with amnesia.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. - John Adams
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

You've got to marinate your head, in that time and culture.
You've got to become them."
(S...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

Because of No Child Left Behind, sadly, history is being put on the back burner or taken off the sto...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. ...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

When I read that the British army had landed thirty-two thousand troops - and I had realized, not ve...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

[It could be argued that the Johnstown flood of 1889 wasn't a natural disaster at all, but the inevi...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard."

(Interv...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

I work very hard on the writing, writing and rewriting and trying to weed out the lumber.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

It couldn't have happened on a more appropriate day, given that she's been so much involved all alon...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

dropping the key in the box and slipping away in the night.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

The problem with Adams,
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

I have to tell you, of all of Washington's strengths, his greatest strength was that he would not qu...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

They took stock of the situation, and they realized the war was over and we had lost,
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

They might not look like soldiers, they might not know much about drill, and soldier's life . . . an...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

The Johnstown flood was not an act of God or nature. It was brought by human failure, human shortsig...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

When the founders spoke of the pursuit of happiness they didn't mean longer vacations or more stuff....
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

It was like the parting of the seas.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

The man who emerges is truly heroic, and that was a surprise for me, ... This is a greathearted fell...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

Real success is finding your lifework in the worth that you love.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

We who are residing in a foreign country, away from the immediate scene of action, perhaps can feel ...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

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

If they want to make us park [in the stadium lots], then they should make the parking affordable. Bu...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

My next book is also set in the eighteenth century. It's about the Revolution, with the focus on...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

Every book is a new journey. I never felt I was an expert on a subject as I embarked on a project.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

The Great Bridge, The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

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

I came across a lot of material I wanted to use for the Adams book and wasn't able to,
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

I think how pleased he and Abigail would be if they were here to see how we've gathered today, ... t...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

We can know a lot by (Adams') friends and his loyalty to them, ... In the face of political disagree...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

It's a mistake and a great shame,
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

The author perceptively outlines what might be an underrated aspect of his subject and of many other...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

A man who will steal for me will steal from me." Theodore Roosevelt, dismissing on the spot one of h...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

The evil of technology was not technology itself, Lindbergh came to see after the war, not in airpla...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

There's an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

When a friend of Abigail and John Adams was killed at Bunker Hill, Abigail's response was to write a...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

Real success is finding you lifework in the work that you love.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

To his own children he was at once the ultimate voice of authority and, when time allowed, their mos...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

I feel that as much as I enjoy loafing, there is something higher for which to live.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

People are so helpful. People will stop what they're doing to show you something, to walk with y...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

People ask me when I start one of these projects, what is your theme? I havent the faintest idea. ...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

The pull, the attraction of history, is in our human nature. What makes us tick? Why do we do what w...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

I lament the want of a liberal education. I feel the mist of ignorance to surround me - Nathanael Gr...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

My shorthand answer is that I try to write the kind of book that I would like to read. If I can make...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

To go back and read Swift and Defoe and Samuel Johnson and Smollett and Pope - all those people we h...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a mak...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

I'm drawn particularly to stories that evolve out of the character of the protagonist.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

The title always comes last. What I really work hard on is the beginning. Where do you begin? In wha...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

With the Truman book, I wrote the entire account of his experiences in World War I before going over...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

I had been writing for about twelve years. I knew pretty well how you could find things out, but I h...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

I'm very aware how many distractions the reader has in life today, how many good reasons there a...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

In time I began to understand that it's when you start writing that you really find out what you...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

When I began, I thought that the way one should work was to do all the research and then write the b...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

I just thank my father and mother, my lucky stars, that I had the advantage of an education in the h...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history.
DAVID MCCULLOUGH

"Reading history is good for all of us," he says, not surprisingly, perhaps, but his rationale is a ...
DAVID C. MCCULLOUGH

...early medieval Ireland sounds like a somewhat crazed Wisconsin, in which every dairy farm is an a...
DAVID WILLIS MCCULLOUGH

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

Reading history is good for all of us," he says, not surprisingly, perhaps, but his rationale is a f...
DAVID C. MCCULLOUGH

Real success is finding you lifework in the work that you love.
DAVID C. MCCULLOUGH

A nation that forgets its past can function no better than an individual with amnesia.
DAVID C. MCCULLOUGH

"Reading history is good for all of us," he says, not surprisingly, perhaps, but his rationale is a ...
DAVID C. MCCULLOUGH

Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it. Dream big. Work h...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH JR.

History is not the story of heroes entirely. It is often the story of cruelty and injustice and shor...
DAVID C. MCCULLOUGH

Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold th...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH JR.

I lived in the US for donkeys' years so it has been a journey back in time for me. If you have had p...
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

There's a hell of a lot of horny people out there who are not being gratified in the way they sh...
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

My fictitious characters will take the bit between their teeth and gallop off and do something that ...
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

Tar Heel would always come through and just pound North State. But it was fun, and I think it's alwa...
CLAYTON MCCULLOUGH

It's a dead give away of an inexperienced writer if every character speaks with the same voice.
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creatu...
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

I personally don't want to see a nickel of my tax dollars subsidize a private development.
BILL MCCULLOUGH

Jake has tremendous feet and hands. He gets rid of the ball and he's very accurate, which is key. Yo...
CLAYTON MCCULLOUGH

The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate twenty-five- year old men more
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

If my dad got chewed up like that ... I can assure you I would have been calling everybody.
DENNIS MCCULLOUGH

Because so many things were rationed, it was a big deal to get almost anything. Since I wore a unifo...
BILL MCCULLOUGH

When we make films, the approach we take is visually different. The angles we use, for example, that...
BILL MCCULLOUGH

We call ourselves filmmakers; that's what we do from start to finish, and it really takes advantage ...
BILL MCCULLOUGH

We had a couple of lapses and they made it close at the end, but it's good to have a win again. When...
JOHN MCCULLOUGH

They (the publishers) would be ecstatic, I just refuse to. You can't repeat a great act.
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

It is one of the biggest, best sellers of all time,
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

There is no doubt that it is more difficult to read and more difficult to write but I still manage.
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

YOU DON'T HAVE TO WALK IN A MAN'S SHOES TO KNOW WHERE HE'S BEEN. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS, BUY HIM A NE...
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

It means I don't have much depth of vision,
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

Never forget, Caelius, that a great man makes his luck. Luck is there for everyone to seize. Most of...
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

We read (the phrase) in the forward, where it talked about speakeasies. We didn't want a bar and gri...
SANDY MCCULLOUGH

Meggie dropped to her knees, scrambling frantically to collect the miniature clothes before more dam...
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

We're exploring options. We want to make this as painless as possible.
ELLIOTT MCCULLOUGH

I think I'll wear the Chian outfit,' he said to his body servant standing waiting for orders. Many m...
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

A lot of people get these dogs because they want - pardon my expression - a bad-ass dog.
DENNIS MCCULLOUGH

We knew how preventable that was.
DENNIS MCCULLOUGH

We have a sneaking suspicion where it is.
DENNIS MCCULLOUGH

In the animal kingdom, it's a constant struggle. If you have an animal not happy with its position i...
DENNIS MCCULLOUGH

It's not fit for human habitation, let alone animals.
DENNIS MCCULLOUGH

This dog, yesterday morning, we didn't think it was going to survive an hour. We were very concerned...
DENNIS MCCULLOUGH

And they were solid blacked out when we got started. Even their transmission lines were down.
ELBERT MCCULLOUGH

We packed up our stuff that night and spent their rest of the time we were there sleeping in their g...
ELBERT MCCULLOUGH

We were about to get a little depressed after three days without seeing any lights.
ELBERT MCCULLOUGH

That's in Marion County, near Guin.
ELBERT MCCULLOUGH

Once it was down, it was pretty easy. You just have to water it and mow it at specific times.
ELLIOTT MCCULLOUGH

I guess it's also easier for players to slide on, but that's the only other purpose it really serves...
ELLIOTT MCCULLOUGH

That's my job. We won't let this happen again.
ELLIOTT MCCULLOUGH

I think they have been sitting on their hands for a while.
DAVE MCCULLOUGH

You don't know cause you have always been paying the same bill.
DAVE MCCULLOUGH

The last round of layoffs were directly related to natural gas prices. This last round was a group o...
DAVE MCCULLOUGH

Starting in 2000, we started having problems with customers turning to China, and then all of a sudd...
DAVE MCCULLOUGH

It is a readjustment. We're going to stay here and I think we will survive this, but it won't be eas...
DAVE MCCULLOUGH

You didn't happen to install Windows when you upgraded me, did you?
KELLY MCCULLOUGH

In The Touch, the love scenes are the same as they were in The Thorn Birds or anything else I've...
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

It's funny because even to this day, people still know what Little League team they played for. And ...
CLAYTON MCCULLOUGH

You could look at the guy next to you and you knew what he went through. You'd know you'd go through...
CLAYTON MCCULLOUGH

I may not have any power over it at the moment, but at some point that must change. I can be very pa...
KELLY MCCULLOUGH

Any time you go anywhere on the road it is going to be tough.
JASMINE MCCULLOUGH

Any time you go anywhere on the road it is going to be tough. You can't let the other team's fans ge...
JASMINE MCCULLOUGH

It's a hustle thing. People just start staring instead of getting in there and fighting.
JASMINE MCCULLOUGH

Sally's a good consistent hitter. She's been that way. She'll hit that ball. She makes stuff happen....
NELSON MCCULLOUGH

It's a woman's book but I think the men will read it too.
COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

My biggest objection to Marxism has been the presumption that industry should exist at all. I think ...
DAVID DAVID KATZMAN

I gave a funny speech at my wife's birthday party, and I'm thinking, 'Hey, I've stil...
LARRY DAVID

The area where I grew up in Birmingham was very diverse - I was aware of my race but not overly awar...
DAVID HAREWOOD

Birmingham people are the salt of the earth, and I've carried that with me all around the world....
DAVID HAREWOOD

In the last couple of years I've been facing down a lot of the demons of the past and trying to ...
DAVID COVERDALE

George W. Bush: a person who is the ultimate outcome of the American condition. Someone promoted abo...
DAVID LANGE

Stories hold conflict and contrast, highs and lows, life and death, and the human struggle and all k...
DAVID LYNCH

Studying consciousness tells us more about how the world is fundamentally strange. I think we have a...
DAVID CHALMERS

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.
DAVID HARE

The Doctor' is the kind of character - because the guest cast is changing all the time, there ar...
DAVID TENNANT

It's so warm now, and Thanksgiving came so early - is it just me, or does it not really feel lik...
DAVID LETTERMAN

Bilingualism lets you have your cake and eat it. The new language opens the doors to the best jobs i...
DAVID CRYSTAL

I can mention many moments that were unforgettable and revelatory. But the most single revelatory th...
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH

Being dyslexic, I was told that I was an idiot all the time.
DAVID BAILEY

Every man who is high up loves to think that he has done it all himself; and the wife smiles, and le...
DAVID BAILEY

The first half of the 20th century belongs to Picasso, and the second half is about photography. The...
DAVID BAILEY

I always go for simplicity.
DAVID BAILEY

I didn't try and do fashion pictures. I tried to do portraits of girls wearing dresses.
DAVID BAILEY

All I could do at school was paint and draw and that was the only time I ever passed any exam. It wa...
DAVID BAILEY

You can't really copy what I do because I don't do anything.
DAVID BAILEY

I hate being so nostalgic about the Sixties.
DAVID BAILEY

People want security in this insecure world.
DAVID BAILEY

I don't think my work does reflect my nationality - I don't like the idea of nationalism.
DAVID BAILEY

It's not about composition. It's the way you feel about how your objects should relate to ea...
DAVID BAILEY

Girls are more attractive to me than dresses.
DAVID BAILEY

Rockers are the nicest people to photograph. They have no inhibitions.
DAVID BAILEY

Being trendy is dangerous. I've never been trendy, which is why I've never really fallen out...
DAVID BAILEY

I don't see the point of photographing trees or rocks because they're there and anyone can p...
DAVID BAILEY

If you're curious, London's an amazing place.
DAVID BAILEY

I was surrounded by strong women so it had never even occurred to me that women were anything other ...
DAVID BAILEY

The skull is nature's sculpture.
DAVID BAILEY

Anybody can be a great photographer if they zoom in enough on what they love.
DAVID BAILEY

Being handsome wasn't much of a burden. It worked for me.
DAVID BAILEY

Everything I read about hitting a midlife crisis was true. I had such a struggle letting go of youth...
DAVID BOWIE

I had a wonderful childhood, which is tough because it's hard to adjust to a miserable adulthood...
LARRY DAVID

You would think that a rock star being married to a supermodel would be one of the greatest things i...
DAVID BOWIE

People use irony as a defense mechanism.
DAVID BYRNE

Sometimes it's a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and ...
DAVID BYRNE

I certainly agree that putting everything into little genres is counterproductive. You're not go...
DAVID BYRNE

Analysis is like a lobotomy. Who wants to have all their edges shaved off?
DAVID BYRNE

I knew I wanted to have a doll of myself on the cover. I thought, I wanna see myself as a Ken doll.
DAVID BYRNE

I've been in beautiful landscapes where one is tempted to whip out a camera and take a picture. ...
DAVID BYRNE

That's the thing about pictures: they seduce you.
DAVID BYRNE

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their d...
DAVID BYRNE

If anything, a lot of electronic music is music that no one listens to at home, hardly. It's rea...
DAVID BYRNE

My favorite time of day is to get up and eat leftovers from dinner, especially spicy food.
DAVID BYRNE

On a bike, being just slightly above pedestrian and car eye level, one gets a perfect view of the go...
DAVID BYRNE

I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car.
DAVID BYRNE

The arts don't exist in isolation.
DAVID BYRNE

There's a certain amount of freedom involved in cycling: you're self-propelled and decide ex...
DAVID BYRNE

Real beauty knocks you a little bit off kilter.
DAVID BYRNE

Do I wear a helmet? Ugh. I do when I'm riding through a precarious part of town, meaning Midtown...
DAVID BYRNE

Cycling is a joy and faster than many other modes of transport, depending on the time of day. It cle...
DAVID BYRNE

You can know or not know how a car runs and still enjoy riding in a car.
DAVID BYRNE

You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends.
DAVID BYRNE

Cycling can be lonely, but in a good way. It gives you a moment to breathe and think, and get away f...
DAVID BYRNE

Everything's intentional. It's just filling in the dots.
DAVID BYRNE

I like time off. I'm not a workaholic.
DAVID THEWLIS

I've had an awful lot of good fortune.
DAVID CASSIDY

Every day is a blessing - not to get too schmaltzy, but, really, it is.
DAVID CASSIDY

What happened to me during the last couple of years of 'The Partridge Family' was I became s...
DAVID CASSIDY

There were times when I was a joke, but talent survives.
DAVID CASSIDY

You can't be 24 again; you can't be new when you're 40 years old.
DAVID CASSIDY

Most people view success by the results, and I don't.
DAVID CASSIDY

I think of my career as something apart from myself.
DAVID CASSIDY

You know, many people who become famous and enjoy great success when they're young disappear aft...
DAVID CASSIDY

I wouldn't want to play anything bigger than 10,000 again. I think it's too much, and you lo...
DAVID CASSIDY

Let me tell you, 10,000 is an intimate room. Believe me. I want to be able to connect to everybody i...
DAVID CASSIDY

When you cut your life into a film - 90-some minutes of film - you end up taking snapshots and vigne...
DAVID CASSIDY

Until I really dealt with a lot of the demons in my life - the fear and self-doubt and unresolved is...
DAVID CASSIDY

I gave up my whole life to my career.
DAVID CASSIDY

Just getting your name in the papers and having people talk about you is not always a good thing.
DAVID CASSIDY

There's nothing wrong with becoming a role model, nothing wrong with inspiring people to become ...
DAVID CASSIDY

It's always nice to have people love you, but I'd just like to be judged fairly.
DAVID CASSIDY

It wasn't until later when people became aware of my writing that I would hear begrudgingly, ...
DAVID CASSIDY

If people respond to the songs, whether they love you or hate you, then you've really done your ...
DAVID CASSIDY

Anybody who carries the albatross of that teen-idol thing - well, people tend to look and say: '...
DAVID CASSIDY

I don't want to end up being some joke on a bad TV series.
DAVID CASSIDY

I just want to continue to produce good work. I don't want to do junk.
DAVID CASSIDY

David McCullough

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