Quotes from Shelby Foote

But the same thing was true in the army. You slept in a barracks with all kinds of people of every nationality, every trade, every character and quality you can imagine, and that was a good experience.

People make a grievous error thinking that a list of facts is the truth. Facts are just the bare bones out of which truth is made.

A fact is not a truth until you love it.

Of all the passions of mankind, the love of novelty most rules the mind. In search of this, from realm to realm we roam. Our fleets come loaded with every folly home.

Most of my inspiration, if that's the word, came from books themselves.

I've never known, at least a modern historical instance, where the truth wasn't superior to distortion in every way.

Before the war it was always the United States *are*, after the war it was the United States is... it made us an is.

The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things... It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.

As a Southerner I would have to say that one of the main importances of the War is that Southerners have a sense of defeat which none of the rest of the country has.

A rich man's war and a poor man's fight.

I'm crazy about Grant: his character, his nature, his science in fighting and everything else. But I don't like the idea that he never accepted the blame for anything, always found someone else to blame for any mistake that was ever made, including blaming Prentiss for Shiloh.

I don't want anything to do with anything mechanical between me and the paper, including a typewriter, and I don't even want a fountain pen between me and the paper.

North was only a direction indicated by a compass--if a man had one, that is, for otherwise there was no north or south or east or west; there was only the brooding desolation.

And I really do think that the difficulty of research makes it more real to you than punching a thing to find out how many men were killed at this particular action.

Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.

I think making mistakes and discovering them for yourself is of great value, but to have someone else to point out your mistakes is a shortcut of the process.

I used to write sonnets and various things, and moved from there into writing prose, which, incidentally, is a lot more interesting than poetry, including the rhythms of prose.

I took five years on the first volume, five years on the second volume, and ten years on the third volume.