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" The Catalonian movement is quite serious; I don't think it's simply symbolic. I think that they believe that Catalonia can be more successful on its own than as part of Spain. "

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" There has always been interest in certain phases and aspects of history - military history is a perennial bestseller, the Civil War, that sort of thing. But I think that there is a lot of interest in historical biography and what's generally called narrative history: history as story-telling. "

H. W. Brands

War

Think

Always

" I'm trying to tell the story of the evolution of America. Each biography is a life in time, and I can see there's a particular task for each generation that I write about. "

" I was raised in, and presumably to, the cutlery business. I really didn't think that that's what I wanted to do for a career. But I felt a certain obligation to give it a try. "

" It's hard to say that Trump actually has a health care policy. "

" A lot of people were ambivalent about Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson in 1964 positioned himself as the peace candidate. Once Johnson sent large amounts of troops into battle in 1965, most Americans were behind the war. "

" Everything that happens today is like something in the past, but it's also unlike things in the past. We never know until an event happens if it's the similarities or differences that matter more. "

" The more of my readers I encounter who say, often apologetically, that they are actually listeners, the more I write for the ear rather than the eye. Small things like identifying speakers in dialogue rather than relying on paragraphing to mark the shifts. "

" When the Constitution was written in 1787, there was this supposition that American politics would be above party. The people who would staff the positions in government would have the interests of the country, or at least their states and congressional districts, at heart, and so they wouldn't form permanent political parties. "

" With my first few books, I was aiming at an academic audience, basically, to get tenure. You can presuppose a certain amount of knowledge; you can expect that there is this common background. "

" Booker Washington was essentially the head Republican boss in the South. He was a power broker. "

H. W. Brands

Republican

Power

" When you tell a story, there are imperatives of structure, of style, of pacing and all of this, that are there simply because you want to make it a good story. When do you introduce your characters? When do you put them onstage, when do you take them off the stage? How do you weave the different threads of the narrative together? "

" Presidents have to decide what their popularity is for. Lyndon Johnson probably understood best that political popularity is a wasting asset. You had to use it when you had it. "

" There is a certain kind of sobering, civilizing effect that being president imposes on people. There is a certain kind of dignity with which you comport yourself. As an observer of the presidency, I have to wonder if Trump would follow that pattern. "

" If you put on the military uniform, you're a prima facie hero. Generals are the epitome of that. They're the ones who have been most successful at the soldier's trade. "

" The Republican Party has moved substantially to the right of where Reagan was. "

" Toward the end of the 1964 presidential campaign, Reagan gives a speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater. It was like a screen test for a new career. "

" I had this grand plan for writing the history of the United States in six volumes. This was in the mid-1990s; I was fairly young and very ambitious. I pitched it to a publisher, who just laughed at me. "

H. W. Brands

History

Just

" I'm more inclined to say the presidency has changed Trump rather than Trump changed the presidency. He has moderated or reversed himself on most of the positions he took as a candidate. Reality has set in, as it does with every new president. "

H. W. Brands

New

President

" You might say presidents are drafting the first chapter of their memoirs in these seventh-year State of the Union addresses. They're trying to get the public and the media to think about their presidencies in the way that they would like to have them thought of. "

" I've probably written some books - I know I've written some books that were more interesting to me than to a large audience, but that was mostly when I was first getting started in academia and writing for a narrow audience. "

" Even when candidates have degrees from Harvard and Yale, they try to run as the candidate of the common man. "

" Our love for the Founders leads us to abandon, and even to betray, the very principles they fought for. "

H. W. Brands

Abandon

Our Love

" It wasn't the smiling Trump that people elected. It was the frowning, glowering, angry Donald Trump that people elected. "

" With my students, I always have to sell my subject because I know when you're 19, 20 years old, you've got other things on your mind besides American history. What I have to do is make this as compelling as possible. "

" Presidents are evaluated not by what they did by the stroke of their own pen; it's what they persuade Congress to do. "

" In the business arena, the standard rules of morality don't apply. What we're really looking for is efficiency. It doesn't do anyone any good to be nice to the weak. In a certain sense, competition is inefficient. "

" Previous candidates who get elected are almost always sobered by the office and the responsibility they take on. Donald Trump shows no evidence of that. He's the same Trump that he was when he was host of his reality TV show. He's the same Trump that he was when he was a candidate. "

" Once you become president, you don't even have to stop for red lights. And if it looks like traffic's too bad, you just take a helicopter. "

" When you look at the development of the American presidency, you see that the presidents who have had the greatest impact are the ones who fit their times most successfully. "

" You can always find people, ordinary people, who will support your particular view, so it becomes a politics of personality, especially at the presidential level. People often go for somebody that they like or somebody that they can identify with. "