Samuel > Samuel's Quotes

“cowboys”
― Jean Fritz, Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt!

“When I discovered libraries, it was like having Christmas every day.”
― Jean Fritz

“Only when a book is written out of passion is there much hope of its being read with passion.”
― Jean Fritz

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“You see, that is the sad, sorry, terrible thing about sarcasm.

It's really funny.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

“Cynicism was a one-way path, and once taken the way back was lost forever.”
― Chris Wooding, Poison

“Many of his early engines were quite astounding. They were no faster or more powerful than other designs, and yet they were more expensive, less efficient, and much worst at starting. Despite this, he improved on them in such a way that they would frequently not start at all.”
― Stephen Pile, The Book of Heroic Failures: The Official Handbook of the Not Terribly Good Club of Great Britain

“Success is overrated. We all crave it despite daily evidence that our real genius lies in exactly the opposite direction. Incompetence is what we are good at. It is what marks us off from the animals. We should learn to revere it. All successful people are the same. You know, drive, will to win, determination … it is just too dull to contemplate, whereas everyone who messes up big time does so in a completely individual way. Doing something badly requires skill, panache, genius, exquisite timing and real style.”
― Stephen Pile, The Ultimate Book of Heroic Failures

“Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard."

(Interview with NEH chairman Bruce Cole, Humanities, July/Aug. 2002, Vol. 23/No. 4)”
― 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."

[The Title Always Comes Last; NEH 2003 Jefferson Lecturer interview profile]”
― David McCullough

“Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat down the Little Missouri River in pursuit of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized rowboat. After several days on the river, he caught up and got the draw on them with his trusty Winchester, at which point they surrendered. Then Roosevelt set off in a borrowed wagon to haul the thieves cross-country to justice. They headed across the snow-covered wastes of the Badlands to the railhead at Dickinson, and Roosevelt walked the whole way, the entire 40 miles. It was an astonishing feat, what might be called a defining moment in Roosevelt’s eventful life. But what makes it especially memorable is that during that time, he managed to read all of Anna Karenina. I often think of that when I hear people say they haven’t time to read.”
― David McCullough