David McCullough

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

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

You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history. ”

Every book is a new journey. I never felt I was an expert on a subject as I embarked on a project. ”

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. ”

I love all sides of the work but that doesn't mean it isn't hard. ”

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

To go back and read Swift and Defoe and Samuel Johnson and Smollett and Pope - all those people we had to read in college English courses - to read them now is to have one of the infinite pleasures in life. ”

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

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. ”