Quote

I really believe that what happens one day affects the next, and I think that came from that experience of learning that if I told the score inning by inning, play by play, it built up to its natural climax.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Doris Kearns Goodwin
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: January 4
Historian
Journalist
Political Scientist
Brooklyn
New York
Next
Affects
Happens
Score
Play
Built
Believe
Told
Really
Learning
Think
Came
Thinking
Natural
Inning
Experience
Climax

More quotes by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Image
The only protection as a historian is to institute a process of research and writing that minimizes the possibility of error. And that I have tried to do, aided by modern technology, which enables me, having long since moved beyond longhand, to use a computer for both organizing and taking notes.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
I've chosen to be a commentator and an analyzer of politics, rather than an actual doer of it. I think it could have gone the other way, but I'm not sorry that it didn't, because this made it easier to be home with my kids and to spend time with them. Writing you can do right in your house. You don't have to go anywhere.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
Ironically, the more intensive and far-reaching a historian's research, the greater the difficulty of citation. As the mountain of material grows, so does the possibility of error.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
I think after Sandy Hook, when Obama went out, and he talked a lot about gun control and met with the parents, there was a sense that something was going to happen. But then, I guess, the power of special interests was greater than public sentiment.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
I'd like to think that what my style of writing is, is an attempt not so much to judge the characters that I'm writing about, to expose them, to label them, to stereotype them, but instead to make them come alive for the reader with all their strengths and their flaws intact.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
Lincoln had internalized the pain of those around him-the wounded soldiers, the captured prisoners, the defeated Southerners. Little wonder that he was overwhelmed at times by a profound sadness that even his own resilient temperament could not dispel.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
Good leadership requires you to surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree with you without fear of retaliation.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
I wish we could go back to the time when the private lives of our public figures were relevant only if they directly affected their public responsibilities.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
As a consequence [of a closed economic circle], in 1912 there was not a single Irishman who sat on a single board of a major Boston bank.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
If your ambition comes at the price of an unbalanced life, that there's nothing else that gives you comfort but success, it's not worth it.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
When I do research, I have done - 90 percent of my time is the research, the other ten percent is the writing. So I don't have to face a blank piece of paper. I can look at this as a quote that I have from somewhere.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
If you interview five people about the same incident, and you see five different points of view, it makes you know what makes history so complicated. Something doesn't just occur. It's not like a scientific event. It's a human event. So the dimensions of it will be seen differently by different people.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
Even though Lyndon Johnson's presidency was in many ways scarred forever by the war in Vietnam, and destroyed in a lot of ways, he - as a character - was even larger than his presidency. Being able to get to know him well, that firsthand relationship with this large character, I think is what drew me to writing books about presidents.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
I liked the thought that the book I was now holding had been held by dozens of others.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
Once a president gets to the White House, the only audience that is left that really matters is history.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
I think confidence comes from doing something well, working at it hard, and you build it up. It's not something you're born with. You have to build the confidence as you go along.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
Years of concentration solely on work and individual success meant that in his retirement [Lyndon Johnson] could find no solace in family, in recreation, in sports or in hobbies. It was almost as if the hole in his heart was so large that even the love of a family, without work, could not fill it.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
Perhaps no American family-with the possible exception of the Adams family-has had a more vivid and powerful impact on the life of their times. But the Kennedy tale-the spiral compound of glory, achievement, degradation and almost mythical tragedy-exerts a fascination upon us that goes beyond their public achievements.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
Though [Abraham Lincoln] never would travel to Europe, he went with Shakespeare's kings to Merry England he went with Lord Byron poetry to Spain and Portugal. Literature allowed him to transcend his surroundings.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Image
I think, as a president, you have to want respect. You can't look for love from the American people. You have to just do what you think is right. Some people will hate you, but others, in the long run, will respect you for what you've done.
Doris Kearns Goodwin