History is everything that has ever happened.
In one of his last newsletters, Mike Ranney wrote: "In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I'm treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, 'Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?' No,'" I answered, 'but I served in a company of heroes.
The Canadians have managed to live peacefully with their Indians. It is disgrace that the United States has not done the same.
My first book was the book that changed my life.
My favorite book is the last one printed, which is always better than those that were published earlier.
We are part of a country that outshines those that have gone before us and most of those in existence today.
In 1945, there were more people killed, more buildings destroyed, more high explosives set off, more fires burning than before or since.
American is the first democratic nation-state.
Washington and Jefferson were both rich Virginia planters, but they were never friends.
Reading your own material aloud forces you to listen.
Even before Watergate and his resignation, Nixon had inspired conflicting and passionate emotions.
Writing is not the easiest way to make a living. Your work long hours, usually all by yourself. It is not a way to make money.
The great wars of the 20th Century made it into the worst Century ever.
Washington, not Jefferson, freed his slaves upon his death.
Who today is willing to say that Texas and California and the remainder of the Southwest would be better off if they were governed by Mexico?
World War II, the atomic bomb, the Cold War, made it hard for Americans to continue their optimism.
I think it's just that the private lives of our public leaders are so much more exposed today that if you're sensitive to protecting your family, it's much harder to not get defensive when somebody asks you those really rude questions about what your wife and your children are thinking and feeling at that exact moment.
There are many more want-to-be writers out there than good editors.
Andrew Johnson was a Southerner generally who proclaimed that his native state of Tennessee was a country for white men.
Johnson had been the most powerful man in the world, yet the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong had resisted, overcome his power, broken his will.
Almost everything Truman did in foreign affairs I approve of.
Eisenhower had the clearest blue eyes. He would fix them on you. In my every interview with him, he would lock his eyes on to mine and keep them there.
American corporations hate to give away money.
To be a slaveholder meant one had to regard the African American as inferior in every way.
In America, Jefferson noted with approval, women knew their place.
