123 Quotes by Nathaniel Philbrick

Enthusiasm is big. When I write a book, it's a three-year commitment. Toward the end, I'm writing seven days a week, and it's exhausting but thrilling. The only hope is to have some real enthusiasm for the book. ... Above all, you need some strong emotional or personal connection to your material.

People think I live here on Nantucket and just gaze at the ocean, getting my inspiration. Not so. I work in my basement and gaze out onto a single window that shows me a cement wall. This is a profession, and it’s important to have professionalism about the writing.

The sperm whales’ network of female-based family unit resembled, to a remarkable extent, the community the whalemen had left back home on Nantucket. In both societies the males were itinerants. In their dedication to killing sperm whales the Nantucketers had developed a system of social relationships that mimicked those of their prey.

It has been estimated that at least a thousand Indians were sold into slavery during King Philip’s War, with over half the slaves coming from Plymouth Colony alone. By the end of the war, Mount Hope, once the crowded Native heart of the colony, was virtually empty of inhabitants. Fifty-six years after the sailing of the Mayflower, the Pilgrims’ children had not only defeated the Pokanokets in a devastating war, they had taken conscious, methodical measures to purge the land of its people.

The moment any of them gave up on the difficult work of living with their neighbors – and all of the compromise, frustration, and delay that inevitably entailed – they risked losing everything.

Thomas Paine was so inspired by the heroism displayed at Fort Mifflin that he published an open letter to William Howe: ‘You are fighting for what you can never obtain and we are defending what we never mean to part with.

Without Massasoit’s help, the Pilgrims would never have survived the first year, and they remained steadfast supporters of the sachem to the very end. For his part, Massasoit realized almost from the start that his own fortunes were linked to those of the English.

Chase’s ability to adjust his manner of leadership to the needs of his men begs comparison to one of the greatest and most revered leaders of all time, Sir Ernest Shackleton.

Part of what makes a revolution such a fascinating subject to study is the arrival of the moment when neutrality is no longer an option. Like it or not, a person has to choose.