Civil War Book Quotes & Sayings

I've been reading and researching various aspects of history - Dickens' London, Nelson's sea battles, Magellan's nautical explorations, the weapons and battles and key figures of the American Civil War - for most of my life. I pick up a book here or there or see a documentary or talk with an expert in the subject, and my curiosity about the one area of study and discovery always leads to another. — Gary Paulsen

For my generation - the "Children of Nixon," as I call us in the book - the Lebanese civil war was an iconic event. Downtown Beirut became a metaphor for so many things: man's inhumanity to man, what Charles Bukowski called "the impossibility of being human." It shaped our perceptions of war and human nature, just as Vietnam did for our parents. We used it to understand how the world works. — Annia Ciezadlo

In regards to this great Book [the Bible], I have but to say it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are found portrayed in it. — Abraham Lincoln

When you think about the current present value of the fossil fuel reserves that are on the books, the current fossil fuel companies, the last time that that much wealth was at stake was when the South fought the Civil War, — Chris Hayes

So one of my core themes in The Myth of Male Power - that history's controlling force was not patriarchy, but survival - is still ignored. Instead, the leading universities' women's studies and "gender studies" courses still emanate from the Marxist and Civil Rights model of oppressor vs. oppressed. We'll see in this book exactly why the dichotomy of oppressor/oppressed is both inaccurate and, more important, undermines love and women's empowerment. In virtually every leading university this leads to a demonizing of men and masculinity that distorts the very essence of traditional masculinity - being socialized to be a hero by being willing to sacrifice oneself in war or in work. The possibility that being socialized to be disposable is not genuine power is, to this day, either considered radical, heretical, or, most frequently, not considered. — Warren Farrell

That doesn't sound like civil war to me," said Gaylen, turning back to his book with a smile. "It only sounds silly."
"Of course it's silly," said the Prime Minister impatiently. "But a lot of serious things start silly. — Natalie Babbitt

When I read a book, I try my best, not always successfully, to let the wall crumble just a bit, the barricade that separates me from the book. I try to be involved.
I am Raskalnikov. I am K. I am Humbert and Lolita.
I am you.
If you read these pages and think I'm the way I am because I lived through a civil war, you can't feel my pain. If you believe you're not like me because one woman, and only one, Hannah, chose to be my friend, then you're unable to empathize. — Rabih Alameddine

After I finished the Tycoons - on post-Civil War development - I realized how much I didn't know about the first half of the century, even though there had obviously been an enormous amount of development, so I read about and thought about that for a couple of years before I decided I was ready for a book. — Charles R. Morris

My ancestors fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War; I was raised in Natchez, Miss.; I performed in the Confederate Pageant for a decade; I dug ditches and loaded trucks with black men who taught me more than any book ever could; and I graduated from Ole Miss. Anyone who survived that is a de facto expert on the South. — Greg Iles

Striding tall through Lauren St John's gorgeously written memoir is her father, and chapter after chapter their relationship is untangled and celebrated. Joy and a hunger for life infuse this book
whether St John is writing about the harrowing years of Rhodesia's civil war, her childhood adventures in the bush, or the breaking apart of her family. Rainbow's End is a most generous and wise book. — Lisa Fugard

Our statute books gradually became laden with gross, stereotyped distinctions between the sexes and, indeed, throughout much of the 19th century the position of women in our society was, in many respects, comparable to that of blacks under the pre-Civil War slave codes. — William J. Brennan

Why did John Wilkes Booth do it? In My Thoughts Be Bloody young historian Nora Titone is one of the few to have genuinely explored this question. In doing so, she has crafted a fascinating psychological drama about one of the central events of the Civil War: the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. This book promises to stimulate lively historical debate, and will be a treat for every Civil War buff who always pondered that haunting question, "what made him pull that trigger?" Bravo on a marvelous achievement. — Jay Winik

I asked him if he thought "there" was better than "here." "Not better," he said. "I mean, my great-great-grandpap got his leg shot off. But I feel like it was bigger somehow." Hawkins flipped through pages of Civil War pictures. "At work, I mix dyes and put them in a machine. I'm thirty-six and I've spent almost half my life in Dye House No. 1. I make eight dollars sixty-one cents an hour, which is okay, 'cept everyone says the plant will close and go to China." He put the book back on the shelf. "I just feel like the South has been given a bum deal ever since that War. — Tony Horwitz