Quotes by Bruce Catton

About Bruce Catton:

Charles Bruce Catton was an American historian and journalist, best known for his books on the American Civil War. Known as a narrative historian, Catton specialized in popular history, featuring colorful characters and historical vignettes, in addition to the basic facts, dates, and analyses. Although his books were well researched and supported by footnotes, they were not generally presented in a rigorous academic style. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1954 for A Stillness at Appomattox, his study of the final campaign of the war in Virginia.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

In this respect early youth is exactly like old age; it is a time of waiting for a big trip to an unknown destination. The chief difference is that youth waits for the morning limited and age waits for the night train.

Bruce Catton

Early youth is a baffling time. The present moment is nice but it does not last. Living in it is like waiting in a junction town for the morning limited; the junction may be interesting but some day you will have to leave it and you do not know where...

Bruce Catton

Sooner or later you must move down an unknown road that leads beyond the range of the imagination, and the only certainty is that the trip has to be made.

Bruce Catton

To learn to get along without, to realize that what the world is going to demand of us may be a good deal more important than what we are entitled to demand of it - this is a hard lesson.

Bruce Catton

I think I was always subconsciously driven by an attempt to restate that faith and to show where it was properly grounded, how it grew out of what a great many young men on both sides felt and believed and were brave enough to do.

Bruce Catton

Early youth is a baffling time.

Bruce Catton

The present moment is nice but it does not last. Living in it is like waiting in a junction town for the morning limited; the junction may be interesting but some day you will have to leave it and you do not know where the limited will take you.

Bruce Catton

Our American heritage is greater than any one of us. It can express itself in very homely truths; in the end it can lift up our eyes beyond the glow in the sunset skies.

Bruce Catton

Say this for big league baseball - it is beyond any question the greatest conversation piece ever invented in America.

Bruce Catton

And there is the headlight, shining far down the track, glinting off the steel rails that, like all parallel lines, will meet in infinity, which is after all where this train is going.

Bruce Catton

History does not usually make real sense until long afterward.

Bruce Catton

Author Bio

  • NameBruce Catton
  • DescriptionAmerican historian and journalist
  • AliasesCharles Bruce Catton
  • BornOctober 9, 1899
  • DiedAugust 28, 1978
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionJournalist; Military Historian; Author; Historian
  • AwardsPulitzer Prize For History; National Book Award