Douglas Brinkley Quotes & Sayings

Rosa Parks' entire career has been one as working as a civil rights activist. — Douglas Brinkley

Cronkite is not a genius at anything except being straight, honest, and normal. — Douglas Brinkley

It is a long revisionist road up from the bottom for George W. Bush. He is ranked toward the bottom rung of presidents. — Douglas Brinkley

As late as 1920, some 244,000 Civil War veterans were still living, several of whom were in Congress, while Union hero Oliver Wendell Holmes sat on the U.S. Supreme Court. As D. W. Brogan, an astute observer of national trends, would write: "The impact of the Civil War on American life and American memory can hardly be exaggerated. It is still 'the war.'" Brogan expressed this opinion in 1944 - during World War II. Not until the last Union and Confederate veterans died out in the 1940s would the national memory be truly rid of the Civil War. — Douglas Brinkley

If you're a Kennedy and you go to Italy or you go to Argentina, you're treated as royalty. And in the United States, we're endlessly fascinated by the family. — Douglas Brinkley

It's very important that we keep these special, wild places. It defines the United States. Imagine our country without our national parks and our monuments. Here in California, imagine if you didn't have in Southern Cal the Channel Islands or the great Highway 1, Big Sur up to Point Reyes up to the Redwood country. — Douglas Brinkley

President Obama had a few historians at the White House for a couple of dinners. I was lucky enough to be one of those asked, and he was very interested in Ronald Reagan, and I came away feeling that. — Douglas Brinkley

I think there's a green side to John Kerry, if you like, that he's an environmental activist. His record on the environment is as best as you have on a pro-environment record of anybody in the U.S. Senate. — Douglas Brinkley

Influenced by Pete Seeger and the Weavers, McLean proudly wore the mantle of troubadour in the early 1970s, when 'American Pie' topped the Billboard charts, and has never shed the cape. — Douglas Brinkley

Forget politics. The real story is the advancements being made in medicine. We're on the verge of conquering cancer and Alzheimer's and numerous other diseases. The DNA revolution has just begun. Scientific advancement usually trumps politics. — Douglas Brinkley

How one deals with the death of a loved one is a highly personalized affair. Some people weep for days; others take a hike in the woods or count rosary beads. — Douglas Brinkley

Demeanor-wise, Reagan was a conservative, but a pragmatic conservative, and he found silver linings in things. He liked to be a mediator. He didn't like to have enemies around him. — Douglas Brinkley

There is nobody that's ever going to fill Ted Kennedy's shoes, and that's a tall order for somebody in the family to try to live up to. — Douglas Brinkley

Although federal revenues nearly doubled during the Reagan years, federal spending far exceeded that pace and drove the national debt from $909 billion to $2.6 trillion between 1980 and 1988, by far the highest it had ever been. — Douglas Brinkley

We can only imagine the history of the free world today if, at the end of the Civil War, there had been two countries: the United States and the Confederate States of America. — Douglas Brinkley

survival of the fittest" - which was first coined by the economist Herbert Spencer — Douglas Brinkley

History chalks up Mr. McKinley's War as a U.S. win, and he also polls favorably as a 'near great' president. — Douglas Brinkley

Over the past four decades no reporter has critiqued the American South with such evocative sensitivity and bedrock honesty as Curtis Wilkie. — Douglas Brinkley

Animals interest me more than anything else. — Douglas Brinkley

In Austin, the eco-capital of Texas, residents tend to favor native plants and wildflowers to the sculpted lawns of the Palm Springs variety. — Douglas Brinkley

The D-Day moniker wasn't invented for the Allied invasion. The same name had been attached to the date of every planned offensive of World War II. It was first coined during World War I, at the U.S. attack at the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, in France in 1918. — Douglas Brinkley

I was stunned to find out there had never been a serious, scholarly biography ever written on Rosa Parks. — Douglas Brinkley

In 1971, near the middle of Nixon's first term, he approved a plan to install a White House taping system as a way of preserving an accurate chronicle of important discussions and decisions. Except for Nixon, three aides, and the Secret Service, no one knew about the listening devices. — Douglas Brinkley

Cronkite had mastered the intentional pause, the need for frozen seconds of long silence at certain historic moments. Nobody before or after Cronkite had mastered the art of communicating news on television nightly without ever becoming an irritant. — Douglas Brinkley

Everybody trusted Cronkite because he reminded them of their favorite uncle or trusted family physician. Being square in the age of the Beatles made Cronkite retro cool. — Douglas Brinkley

Broadcast radio was entering its own golden age during the Depression, with live programming on stations all through the day. Local stations needed singers, musicians, announcers, and whipcord personalities, along with Christian clergy to give prayers and pundits to speak on world affairs. — Douglas Brinkley

To Armstrong, constantly speaking about 'Apollo 11' only diminished the magic. That's why he worked overtime to avoid notice, living a quiet life in Indian Hill, Ohio. — Douglas Brinkley

Reagan never cottoned to dictators. He was pure in this notion in a true belief that democracy was the best solution in the world because it spoke to people's hopes and dreams and aspirations, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of speech. — Douglas Brinkley

The answer to New Orleans's levee woes is painfully obvious: money and willpower. — Douglas Brinkley

The Rough Riders brought honor to San Antonio by winning battles in Cuba throughout the summer of 1898, and Roosevelt became a Texas folk hero overnight. — Douglas Brinkley

For years, I longed to hear Armstrong describe what it was like to contemplate Earth from 238,900 miles away. Former Space Center director George Abbey once told me that many NASA astronauts felt that looking at Earth was akin to a religious experience. — Douglas Brinkley

Do we pour $40 billion into grandiose Louisiana engineering projects or do we instead put up no trespassing- signs in the areas below sea level? All are hard choices with various merits and pains. The important thing, however, is for America to decide whether the current policy of inaction is really the way we want to deal with the worst natural disaster in our history. — Douglas Brinkley

With the newspapers cheering, Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt chose a top-notch regiment of more than 1,250 men. They were first called Teddy's Texas Tarantulas and went through three or four other monikers until Roosevelt's Rough Riders stuck. — Douglas Brinkley

Richard Kerry not only was a pilot in World War II, but was a civil servant. He did not come from money. — Douglas Brinkley

Now I'm the father of three children; I'm not able to go live on a bus and do semesters around the country like I did when I was young. — Douglas Brinkley

Stubbornness is a positive quality of presidential leadership - if you're right about what you're stubborn about. — Douglas Brinkley

The superhighway of celebrity and showmanship is filled with debris. — Douglas Brinkley

When terrorists blew up the Marine barracks in Lebanon, Reagan was frustrated and furious, as Bush was after 9/11. But he didn't stick us in a war in the Middle East with no exit. — Douglas Brinkley

For Dylan, it seems, life is always the next gig. Changing pace and location are essential to his survival as an artist. — Douglas Brinkley

Knievel seemed braver and more brazen - and more unhinged - than any other athlete-cum-thrill-seeker of his era. — Douglas Brinkley

I have a lot of books I want to write. — Douglas Brinkley

Although Cronkite had once crash landed in a Dutch potato field under enemy fire, he chose instead to focus on celebrating the liberation of the Netherlands at the hands of the Free Dutch. — Douglas Brinkley

As a composer, Dylan now fits comfortably alongside George Gershwin or Irving Berlin, though he grumpily refuses to wear any man's collar. — Douglas Brinkley

John Kerry wants to be the hero in his own drama. He likes King Arthur and the Round Table. He likes the young swashbuckling Churchill, and he loved the early antics of Theodore Roosevelt. — Douglas Brinkley

It's Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency. Clean Air and Water Acts. Endangered Species Act. Promoted affirmative action. One could go on and on with Nixon as a New Deal liberal on domestic policy and a hawk, but one with great geo-political skills. — Douglas Brinkley

The very fact that Barack Obama - an African-American - was twice elected to the presidency will always be the lead line in that hard-to-meld, gold-plated paragraph. — Douglas Brinkley

Years later, the plain-speaking Truman would explain: "I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the president . . . . I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail. — Douglas Brinkley

Some presidents, such as Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, are political sailors - they tack with the wind, reaching difficult policy objectives through bipartisan maneuvering and pulse-taking. — Douglas Brinkley

In 2012, the city of Austin erected an eight-foot-tall bronze statue of Willie Nelson in the heart of the business district. Schoolchildren, churchgoers, tourists, slackers, conventioneers, tech geeks - everybody, it seems - now congregate around this ponytailed shrine to outlaw country. — Douglas Brinkley

I learned more about history and literature in the used bookstores in DC than in college libraries. — Douglas Brinkley

Politicians wanted to mine the Grand Canyon for zinc and copper, and Theodore Roosevelt said, 'No.' — Douglas Brinkley

John Kerry doesn't think in terms of black-and-white. He's all gray, and he looks at all sides of the issues. That makes people think he likes to be devil's advocate. Whatever you say, he'll challenge you on. — Douglas Brinkley

Ever since Willie Nelson brought rednecks into an alliance with hippies back in the psychedelic '70s, Austin has milked its quirky libertarian spirit for a worldwide bonanza of free publicity. — Douglas Brinkley

Cronkite was always one step short of disillusionment. — Douglas Brinkley

I'm not a partisan. — Douglas Brinkley

The Middle East is the tinder box of the world, and to be able to remove a nuclear threat of any kind out of Iran, that would have been a big deal, very positive step forward. — Douglas Brinkley

I think, along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks will go down as one of the two most well-known and remembered figures out of the Civil Rights Movement. — Douglas Brinkley

Theodore Roosevelt had been enthralled with the idea of Texas since 1883, when he arrived in the Dakota Territory to ranch cattle. — Douglas Brinkley

Unlike the Marines, who are given macho monikers like "jarheads," the Coast Guard had long been denigrated in military circles as fey "puddle jumpers." But just as 9/11 brought a newfound respect to firemen, Katrina did the same for the reputation of the Coast Guard. At the peak of rescue operations they had 62 aircraft, 30 cutters, and 111 small boats stepping up in rescue and recovery operations. They did it all one person at a time. — Douglas Brinkley

When I was 8 years old, I made my own encyclopedia of American biography - Johnny Appleseed, Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Charles Lindbergh, my pantheon of favorite heroes. Then I would write my own things and sew them together and try to make my own book. — Douglas Brinkley

The myth-making about Appomattox started from the moment Lee left the courthouse on his horse to travel to Richmond. — Douglas Brinkley

Hurricane Katrina is without question the worst natural disaster in American history,. — Douglas Brinkley

Unfortunately, one of the biggest misperceptions the American public harbors is that Katrina was a week-long catastrophe. In truth, it's better to view it as an era. — Douglas Brinkley

What makes 'American Pie' so unusual is that it isn't a relic from the counterculture but a talisman, which, like a sacred river, keeps bringing joy to listeners everywhere. When 'American Pie' suddenly is played on a jukebox or radio, it's almost impossible not to sing along. — Douglas Brinkley

Usually, one day in a century rises above the others as an accepted turning point or historic milestone. It becomes the climactic day, or 'the day,' of that century. — Douglas Brinkley

There is no real way to categorize McLean's 'American Pie' for its hybrid of modern poetry and folk ballad, beer-hall chant and high-art rock. — Douglas Brinkley

Most computer users by the end of the century made regular use of the Internet, a vast web of worldwide computer networks born in the late 1960s in the work done by the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and universities it commissioned. Its founders had needed to share information with researchers working on government contracts at various universities. Once computer users at these well-funded institutions realized the possibilities of an electronic network connecting them with colleagues worldwide, word of the wonder spread and the Internet blossomed. By the late 1980s, anyone with a computer equipped with a modem hooked up to a regular telephone line could send an "E-mail" message or any other electronic document to anyone similarly equipped anywhere in the world - instantaneously. By 1994, the number of people connected to the World Wide Web of computer networks had swelled to an estimated 15 million. — Douglas Brinkley

Most Americans didn't distinguish fame from accomplishment. — Douglas Brinkley

John Kerry can be absolutely ruthless. I would not want to be on his enemies list when he's ready to go after you. — Douglas Brinkley

Reagan was a pure liberation, free-and-fair election American. — Douglas Brinkley

John McPhee's 1989 book The Control of Nature, for — Douglas Brinkley

When we settled our country, the dark forest was considered in some ways evil and something that you needed to plow or, later, bulldoze. We now have a new understanding of the interconnectedness of ecosystems and the need for bird flyways and why all species matter. — Douglas Brinkley

One thing 'not right' on the 50th anniversary of the Selma marches is the sad fact that the Edmund Pettus Bridge hasn't been renamed the John Lewis Bridge. — Douglas Brinkley

Administration policies seem to tacitly encourage those who live below sea level in New Orleans to relocate permanently, to leave the dangerous water's edge for more prosperous inland cities such as Shreveport or Baton Rouge. — Douglas Brinkley

It didn't seem to matter that Reagan made his heartfelt endorsements of traditional family values despite being divorced and so alienated from his own children that one of them would write a book about what a rotten father he had been; by the same token, the president's failure to have made regular or even occasional visits to church hardly dimmed his appeal for the resurgent religious right — Douglas Brinkley

Salt Lake City has a monument to the seagulls, which in 1848 swooped down from the sky to devour a swarm of locusts, thereby saving Utah crops. They were known affectionately as the "Mormon Air Force." Someday New Orleans should likewise honor the dragonfly. With their large multifaceted eyes, two pairs of strong transparent wings, and outstretched bodies, dragonflies frighten most people. On Tuesday dragonflies blanketed New Orleans, hovering just inches above the smelly floodwater, eating every mosquito in sight. — Douglas Brinkley

February was always the cruelest month for Hunter S. Thompson. An avid NFL fan, Hunter traditionally embraced the Super Bowl in January as the high-water mark of his year. — Douglas Brinkley

I think Ronald Reagan is what happened ... The age of Reagan brought conservatism into the mainstream ... It also brought us the beginning of the new media-talk radio, the internet, cable television. — Douglas Brinkley

What I was most curious about was why Armstrong, a top U.S. Navy test pilot, flying the most advanced aircraft in the world, would want to join the astronaut corps in 1962, which included chimpanzees and monkeys. — Douglas Brinkley

John Kerry had a very vivid imagination as a young person. I mean, he actually did go and take his bicycle from Norway to go camp in Sherwood Forest to be around the ghost of Robin Hood. — Douglas Brinkley

While the old spiritual 'Slavery Chain Done Broke at Last' was sung by blacks in the hours following the Appomattox surrender, racism sadly continues to be a crippling national scourge. — Douglas Brinkley

Having recorded his first album, 'Tapestry,' in 1969, in Berkeley, California, during the student riots, McLean, a native New Yorker, became a kind of weather vane for what he called the 'generation lost in space.' — Douglas Brinkley

. And when we allow freedom to ring . . . we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last. — Douglas Brinkley

New Orleans is just a microcosm of Newark and Detroit and hundreds of other troubled urban locales. — Douglas Brinkley

If D-Day - the greatest amphibious operation ever undertaken - failed, there would be no going back to the drawing board for the Allies. Regrouping and attempting another massive invasion of German-occupied France even a few months later in 1944 wasn't an option. — Douglas Brinkley

I'm not a historian who thinks Confederate memorials should be boarded up. — Douglas Brinkley

There were three Selma-to-Montgomery marches in March 1965, and Rosa Parks had missed the first one. Parks, whose act of civil disobedience sparked the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, moved to Detroit two years later for safety reasons. — Douglas Brinkley

He followed an ironclad rule. He NEVER WATCHED HIMSELF. — Douglas Brinkley

Unlike most fine writers, he wasn't in love with his own words. — Douglas Brinkley

One of the things I learned in editing 'The Reagan Diaries' is to never say what Reagan would do, because he surprised people. — Douglas Brinkley

History will remember the Superdome debacle - caused by the dearth of evacuation buses - as "Nagin's Folly," mayoral incompetence of the first order. — Douglas Brinkley

I feel like I'm always learning from people. — Douglas Brinkley

Her continuity - you know, if you connect Harriet Tubman, who died in 1913, to Rosa Parks, born in 1913, you get this extraordinary spectrum of the African-American experience. — Douglas Brinkley

President Abraham Lincoln never lost his ardor for the United States to remain united during the Civil War. — Douglas Brinkley

When he (Walter Cronkite) drank, he had an appetite for both history and political bullshit. — Douglas Brinkley

Nixon was always willing to be bipartisan, so there are a lot of surprises in the man. — Douglas Brinkley

The world of high-stakes international diplomacy can be rough and tumble, but it's more often than not a procession of suits and summits, protocol sessions and photo ops. — Douglas Brinkley

If life were fattening, Walter Cronkite would weigh 500 pounds. — Douglas Brinkley

the president began dictating what became his famous declaration of hope for "a world founded upon four essential human freedoms" - freedom of speech and expression; freedom of religion; freedom from want; and freedom from fear. These were, he said, not a vision for "a distant millennium" but "a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. — Douglas Brinkley

If Reagan had intelligence information that showed that the upheaval in Egypt is actually Democratic in spirit, then he would have, I believe, turned his back on Mubarak, even though there's a long friendship between the United States and Egypt. — Douglas Brinkley