Doris Kearns Goodwin Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Washington was a typical American. Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country - bigger than all the Presidents together.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Country, President, Together

  K. M. Kostyal, Doris Kearns Goodwin (2009). “Abraham Lincoln's extraordinary era: the man and his times”, Natl Geographic Society

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• My books are written with a strong chronological spine.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Strong, Book, Spine

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• I still think about that one Jamiroquai video a lot.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Thinking, Video, Stills

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• Politicians generally form alliances and not friendships. Individuals and institutions achieve their ends through continual barter. But deals are not bonds. Indeed, intense emotional involvement with anything - with issues, ideology, a woman, even a family - can be a handicap, not only consuming valuable time, but more importantly, reducing flexibility and the capacity for detached calculation needed to take maximum advantage of continually changing circumstances.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Emotional, Issues, Alliances

  Doris Kearns Goodwin (2015). “Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream”, p.70, Open Road Media

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• What I think I've learned is that you're never going to get it all right, and you can't obsess about having a fact wrong or a date wrong or something like that, as long as you tried as best you could. If you've done the kind of research that you're sure is pretty good, then you just have to have confidence in it, so that nothing is perfect in life. I think that is what the criticism has helped me to understand.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Thinking, Long, Perfect

  "Lessons of Presidential Leadership". Academy of Achievemnt, www.achievement.org. June 28, 1996.

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• We've got to figure out a way that we give a private sphere for our public leaders. We're not gonna get the best people in public life if we don't do that.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  People, Giving, Leader

  "Meet the Press" with David Gregory, www.nbcnews.com. Noveber 11, 2012.

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• I'd like to think that what my style of writing is, is an attempt not so much to judge the characters that I'm writing about, to expose them, to label them, to stereotype them, but instead to make them come alive for the reader with all their strengths and their flaws intact.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Writing, Character, Thinking

  Source: www.achievement.org

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• One of the important qualities that I think is often overlooked is just energy. It's vitality, and sort of a life force that some people have and others don't. Probably that is connected to a love of whatever it is that they're doing. Another quality that I think is central is confidence. Again, some people are more blessed with that than others.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Blessed, Thinking, People

  Source: www.achievement.org

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• The White House is such an extraordinary, simple, beautiful place. It's an extraordinary piece of our history, because it is the one thing that binds our country together. We don't have a king obviously, but we have this president, and the fact that almost all of them have lived in the same place, and so much history took place in those rooms. You can't help but feel awe-inspired by being there.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Beautiful, Country, Kings

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• Excitement about things became a habit, a part of my personality, and the expectation that I should enjoy new experiences often engendered the enjoyment itself.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  New Experiences, Expectations, Personality

  Doris Kearns Goodwin (2009). “Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir”, p.15, Simon and Schuster

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• When I look at Franklin Roosevelt's leadership, I think the most important quality he had during the Depression and the war was this absolute confidence in himself, in his country, really in the American people. He was able to exude that confidence and almost project it.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Country, War, Thinking

  Source: www.achievement.org

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• Many kids think unless they go to one of these great Ivy League schools, which I was lucky enough to go to later, that they won't get the same kind of learning. But I learned just the opposite lesson; that my best teachers were not at Harvard University.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Teacher, Kids, School

  Source: www.achievement.org

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• I keep thinking that history runs in cycles, and that some day certain large issues will come before the country again. There will be leaders that inspire young people. I don't think it means that it's over forever, but I'm getting pretty impatient. I'm hoping it comes soon, so that my young people can know that experience that we knew in the '60s, and that the World War II generation knew during the '40s.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Country, Running, War

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• You can't start out at 20 in whatever your profession is and say, "I want to win an Olympic medal," or "I want to become president," or "I want to win the Pulitzer Prize." If you love what you're doing, it's sort of a nice thing that happens toward the end of your career, or in the middle of your career. It is not the reason you were doing it. The reason you were doing it is because every day you wake up in the morning and you can't wait to learn something new.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Morning, Nice, Winning

  Source: www.achievement.org

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• Sometimes people will find things that are wrong. Sometimes they will even find an approach that you took wrong. If you think you took the right approach, then you just absorb the criticism, but you don't change your mind.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Thinking, People, Mind

  Source: www.achievement.org

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• Lincoln had internalized the pain of those around him-the wounded soldiers, the captured prisoners, the defeated Southerners. Little wonder that he was overwhelmed at times by a profound sadness that even his own resilient temperament could not dispel.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Pain, Sadness, Profound

  Doris Kearns Goodwin (2006). “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”, p.724, Simon and Schuster

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• Those who knew Lincoln described him as an extraordinarily funny man. Humor was an essential aspect of his temperament. He laughed, he explained, so he did not weep.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Men, Essentials, Aspect

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• As a consequence [of a closed economic circle], in 1912 there was not a single Irishman who sat on a single board of a major Boston bank.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Boston, Circles, Boards

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• My recurring nightmare is that someday I will be faced with a panel: Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson all of whom will be telling me everything I got wrong about them. I know that Johnson's out there saying, 'Why is it that what you wrote about the Kennedys is twice as long as the book you wrote about me?

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Book, Long, Nightmare

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• Ironically, the more intensive and far-reaching a historian's research, the greater the difficulty of citation. As the mountain of material grows, so does the possibility of error.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Errors, Mountain, Doe

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• Even though Lyndon Johnson's presidency was in many ways scarred forever by the war in Vietnam, and destroyed in a lot of ways, he - as a character - was even larger than his presidency. Being able to get to know him well, that firsthand relationship with this large character, I think is what drew me to writing books about presidents.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  War, Book, Writing

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• I think the most important advice is, a person doesn't have to find out right away. It's not like their first attempt at finding a profession is the only one they're going to find. I might well have gone down other paths, and it still might have been okay. But if you find something that you love, and if it keeps deepening with each new experience, then just stay with it.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Thinking, New Experiences, Advice

  Source: www.achievement.org

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• I think that's still what the American Dream means: that with perseverance, with hard work, you can become something, that the classes won't prevent you from becoming, that there's a movement up that ladder with hard work.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Dream, Perseverance, Hard Work

  Source: www.achievement.org

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• You can be enormously effective for a period of time, because it's almost like there's an engine in you that needs to keep going, and you have a greater drive than other people - who may be more happy and balanced in life - because you have to keep going out and proving yourself over and over again.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  People, Needs, Going Out

  "Lessons of Presidential Leadership". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 28, 1996.

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• I've chosen to be a commentator and an analyzer of politics, rather than an actual doer of it. I think it could have gone the other way, but I'm not sorry that it didn't, because this made it easier to be home with my kids and to spend time with them. Writing you can do right in your house. You don't have to go anywhere.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Sorry, Kids, Home

  Source: www.achievement.org

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