David McCullough

To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is. ↗

— David McCullough

#art #being #civic #enlargement #experience

When I began, I thought that the way one should work was to do all the research and then write the book. ↗

— David McCullough

#book #i #research #should #then

No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read. ↗

— David McCullough

#harm #history #making #read #someone

People are so helpful. People will stop what they're doing to show you something, to walk with you through a section of the town, or explain how a suspension bridge really works. ↗

— David McCullough

#doing #explain #helpful #how #people

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

— David McCullough

#better #forgets #function #individual #nation

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

— David McCullough

#first #first of all #in the past #lived #make

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

#academic #been #could #find #go

I just thank my father and mother, my lucky stars, that I had the advantage of an education in the humanities. ↗

— David McCullough

#education #father #had #humanities #i

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

— David McCullough

#i #i love #love #mean #sides

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

— David McCullough

#i #i love #love #scene #sets