Quotes from 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.

I'm very aware how many distractions the reader has in life today, how many good reasons there are to put the book down.

We must not think of learning as only what happens in schools. It is an extended part of life. The most readily available resource for all of life is our public library system.

Nothing ever invented can you a bigger life than a book.

Read somewhat in the English poets every day. You will find them elegant, entertaining and constructive companions through your whole life.

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

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read great books. Read poetry, history, biography. Read the novels that have stood the test of time. And read closely.

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 musi

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.

In time I began to understand that it's when you start writing that you really find out what you don't know and need to know.

You've got to marinate your head, in that time and culture. You've got to become them." (Speaking about researching, and reading, and immersing yourself in History)

I often think of that when I hear people say that they haven't time to read.

The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement... To do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance.

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

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

I can fairly be called an amateur because I do what I do, in the original sense of the word - for love, because I love it. On the other hand, I think that those of us who make our living writing history can also be called true professionals.

With the Truman book, I wrote the entire account of his experiences in World War I before going over to Europe to follow his tracks in the war. When I got there, there was a certain satisfaction in finding I had it right - it does look like that.

My next book is also set in the eighteenth century. It's about the Revolution, with the focus on the year 1776. It's about Washington and the army and the war. It's the nadir, the low point of the United States of America.

The truth isn't just the facts. You can have all the facts imaginable and miss the truth, just as you can have facts missing or some wrong, and reach the larger truth.

I love to go to the places where things happen. I like to walk the walk and see how the light falls and what winter feels like.

I think that we need history as much as we need bread or water or love.

You can't love what you don't know much about. You can't convince, stimulate, hold the attention, teach, if you don't know what you're talking about.

My love is to tell a story but I like stories that evolve from character, from the nature of the individuals involved.

I love Dickens. I love the way he sets a scene.