As to the Indians, the guiding principle was, promise them anything just so long as they get out of the way.

You don’t hate history, you hate the way it was taught to you in high school.

The more sophisticated we get, the more advanced our buildings and vehicles become, the more vulnerable we are.

American corporations hate to give away money.

The copied words they discovered amounted to about 10 pages out of a total work of some 15,000 pages in print, … The investigative reporters found them by using my footnotes.

As a people, we have wrestled with Vietnam’s legacy for many years, as was and is our duty. Now we want to remind ourselves of what we have done right. Our involvement in World War II was us doing right.

World War II, the atomic bomb, the Cold War, made it hard for Americans to continue their optimism.

The Holocaust was the most evil crime ever committed.

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.

I was taught by professors who had done their schooling in the 1930s. Most of them were scornful of, even hated, big business.

We are part of a country that outshines those that have gone before us and most of those in existence today.

Eisenhower is my choice as the American of the 20th Century. Of all the men I’ve studied and written about, he is the brightest and the best.

Trial by jury. Live wherever you can make a living. How could a government based on such principles fail?

a great teacher of writing.

Neither Johnson nor his party nor the government as a whole were willing to raise, train, equip, and then send Vietnam sufficient manpower to do the job.

The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future.

Winning the Revolutionary War, or the Civil War, or World War II were the turning points in our history, the sine qua non of our forward progress.

Washington, not Jefferson, freed his slaves upon his death.

The American Constitution is the greatest governing document, and at some 7,000 words, just about the shortest.

Crazy Horse saw history as integrated in the present, incorporated into daily life.

Andrew Johnson was a Southerner generally who proclaimed that his native state of Tennessee was a country for white men.

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.

The number one secret of being a successful writer is this: marry an English major.

It would not be possible to praises nurses too highly.

There are many more want-to-be writers out there than good editors.

The Canadians have managed to live peacefully with their Indians. It is disgrace that the United States has not done the same.

In 1945, there were more people killed, more buildings destroyed, more high explosives set off, more fires burning than before or since.

Immigrants do more than help us win our wars, or set up cleaning shops or ethnic restaurants.

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?

The great wars of the 20th Century made it into the worst Century ever.

My favorite book is the last one printed, which is always better than those that were published earlier.

Custer had dead heroes. Crazy Horse had only live ones.

You cannot kill that city, … I bet there’s people saying, I’ve got to go back.’

We voted 50-50 for the next president, … One of the things that was notable was how much the American people today yearn for a sense of national unity and that brought it about. So there are a lot of things that happened after 12/7/41 that are happening now and will continue to happen, the...

American is the first democratic nation-state.

To be a slaveholder meant one had to regard the African American as inferior in every way.

Like their predecessors, the Presidents of today just throw up their hands.

Nearly every artifact has a story connected to it, whether it be a hole in a helmet or a belt that a medic carried around with him as he treated the wounded on the beach.

Reading your own material aloud forces you to listen.

My first book was the book that changed my life.

In America, Jefferson noted with approval, women knew their place.

The war in Vietnam I thought a dreadful mistake.

Nixon regarded himself as having been cheated by life. He never got my vote.

I was too young for Korea and too old for Vietnam.

History is everything that has ever happened.

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.

It does you no good to see the number two or number three man in the corporation-you have to get through to number one.

Dams have harmed our wildlife and made rivers less useful for recreation.

You can take the day off.

The irony here is the man who has done the most to keep these papers from becoming available, Dick Nixon, is the man who’s going to benefit the most from them because people are going to start seeing the problems from his point of view.