If we think back through our own lives, the subjects that you liked best in school almost certainly were taught by the teachers you liked best. And the teacher you liked best was the teacher who cared about the subject she taught.
I just thank my father and mother, my lucky stars, that I had the advantage of an education in the humanities.
If you get down about the state of American culture, just remember there are still more public libraries in this country than there are McDonalds.
Courage is contagious. If a leader shows courage, others get the idea.
I think it’s important to remember that these men are not perfect. If they were marble gods, what they did wouldn’t be so admirable. The more we see the founders as humans the more we can understand them.
Nothing ever invented provides such sustenance, such infinite reward for time spent, as a good book.
There are people who are trying to write history for the general reader who can be quite tedious. That said, I do feel in my heart of hearts that if history isn’t well written, it isn’t going to be read, and if it isn’t read it’s going to die.
No harm’s done to history by making it something someone would want to read.
We all know the old expression, “I’ll work my thoughts out on paper.” There’s something about the pen that focuses the brain in a way that nothing else does. That is why we must have more writing in the schools, more writing in all subjects, not just in English classes.
Every book is a new journey. I never felt I was an expert on a subject as I embarked on a project.
The first of all qualities of a general is courage.
There’s an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing.
Unlike the people you see in Mathew Brady’s photographs from the Civil War, the men and women of the Revolution seem more like characters in a costume pageant. And it’s a pageant in which the performers are all handsome as stage actors, with uniforms and dress that are always costume perfect.
Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.
It was a day and age that saw no reason why one could not learn whatever was required – learn vitally anything – by the close study of books.
The great thing about the arts is that you can only learn to do it by doing it.
I want people to see that all-important time in a different way-in the way it was. For of a number of reasons, including the absence of photographs, we tend to see the men and women of the Revolution as not quite real. And we have far too little sense of what they suffered.
In fact, it was the largest expeditionary force of the 18th century. The largest, most powerful force ever set forth from Britain or any nation.
Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages. It’s accelerative. The more we know, the more we want to know.
Nothing ever invented can you a bigger life than a book.