Quotes by David McCullough

About David McCullough:

David Gaub McCullough is an American author, narrator, historian, and lecturer. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award.
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

To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me, it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is." [ ; NEH 2003 Jefferson Lecturer interview profi...

David McCullough

One might also say that history is not about the past. If you think about it, no one ever lived in the past. Washington, Jefferson, John Adams, and their contemporaries didn't walk about saying, "Isn't this fascinating living in the past! Aren't we p...

David McCullough

If you haven't met Kenny (Young) you have not seen how the spirit of Boston can be embodied by one single man.

David McCullough

The study of history is an antidote to the hubris of the present – the idea that everything we have, everything we do and everything we think is the ultimate, the best.

David McCullough

No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read." ( , NEH Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities 2003)

David McCullough

One of the regrets of my life is that I did not study Latin. I'm absolutely convinced, the more I understand these eighteenth century people, that it was that grounding in Greek and Latin that gave them their sense of the classic virtues: the classic...

David McCullough

Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat down the Little Missouri River in pursuit of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized rowboat. After several days on the river, he ca...

David McCullough

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

David McCullough

When I read that the British army had landed thirty-two thousand troops - and I had realized, not very long before, that Philadelphia only had thirty thousand people in it - it practically lifted me out of my chair.

David McCullough

There's an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing.

David McCullough

People are so helpful. People will stop what they're doing to show you something, to walk with you through a section of the town, or explain how a suspension bridge really works.

David McCullough

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

David McCullough

I would pay to do what I do if I had to.

David McCullough

I had been writing for about twelve years. I knew pretty well how you could find things out, but I had never been trained in an academic way how to go about the research.

David McCullough

First of all, you can make the argument that there's no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past.

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

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

David McCullough

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

David McCullough

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard." (Interview with NEH chairman Bruce Cole, , July/Aug. 2002, Vol. 23/No. 4)

David McCullough

Rather than literally burning the midnight oil, which he judged to be unhealthy, John Adams advised his son to make the most of college by developing an inquisitive outlook that would prompt him to get to know the most exceptional scholars and questi...

David McCullough

Measurements "are never enough. The artist's eye and desire to breathe life into the subject must be the deciding factors.

David McCullough

Author Bio

  • NameDavid McCullough
  • DescriptionAmerican historian and author
  • BornJuly 7, 1933
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionAuthor; Historian; Biographer
  • WorksTruman; John Adams
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; Pulitzer Prize For Biography Or Autobiography; National Book Award; Presidential Medal Of Freedom; National Humanities Medal