274 Quotes by David McCullough

There’s no such thing as a foreseeable future.

Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages. It’s accelerative. The more we know, the more we want to know.

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

You can’t learn to play the piano without playing the piano, you can’t learn to write without writing, and, in many ways, you can’t learn to think without thinking. Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.

Washington had performed his role to perfection. It was no enough that a leader look the part; by Washington’s rules, he must know how to act it with self-command and precision.

History isn’t just what happened, but what happened to whom and why and what would have been different if the cast of characters had been different.

I’m absolutely positive it’s in our human nature to want to know about the past. The two most popular movies of all time, while not historically accurate, are about core historic events: Gone With the Wind and Titanic.

Your education never stops and college is just the beginning. You come out of college with a huge advantage in that you’ve ideally and more times than not you’ve come out with a love of learning and that’s what matters above all.

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.