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

David McCullough

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David McCullough
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: July 7
Author
Biographer
Historian
Journalist
Writer
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
David Gaub McCullough
David G. McCullough
Dickens
Sets
Scene
Way
Love

More quotes by David McCullough

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My wife, the star I steer by.
David McCullough
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Read. Read. Read. Read. Read great books. Read poetry, history, biography. Read the novels that have stood the test of time. And read closely.
David McCullough
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May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.
David McCullough
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Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.
David McCullough
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Courage is contagious. If a leader shows courage, others get the idea.
David McCullough
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The past after all is only another name for someone else's present.
David McCullough
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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.
David McCullough
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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)
David McCullough
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If you get down about the state of American culture, just remember there are still more public libraries in this country than there are McDonalds.
David McCullough
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Nobody ever lived in the past.
David McCullough
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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.
David McCullough
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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.
David McCullough
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The most interesting people are never perfect.
David McCullough
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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.
David McCullough
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Morality only is eternal. All the rest is balloon and bubble from the cradle to the grave.
David McCullough
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Washington was a man of exceptional, almost excessive self-command, rarely permitting himself any show of discouragement or despair.
David McCullough
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People often ask me if I'm working on a book. That's not how I feel. I feel like I work in a book. It's like putting myself under a spell. And this spell, if you will, is so real to me that if I have to leave my work for a few days, I have to work myself back into the spell when I come back. It's almost like hypnosis.
David McCullough
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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.
David McCullough
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Every book is a new journey. I never felt I was an expert on a subject as I embarked on a project.
David McCullough
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It was an utterly phenomenal achievement.
David McCullough