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" 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. "

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" Reagan gave essentially the same speech from the beginning to the end of his political career, which was always, 'The American people are great, the government always screws things up, let's get the government out of the way.' On the foreign policy side it was, 'Communism is bad, and we're going to defeat it.' "

H. W. Brands

Beginning

People

Great

" George W. Bush has shown himself to be a decent guy, not exploiting his former office to make top dollars giving speeches. "

" 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. "

" On style points alone, Donald Trump makes GWB look magnificently presidential. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" By the early 1960s, there was a moral consensus on what needed to be done on civil rights. "

" I'm the farthest thing from a bibliophile. I purge my collection regularly: If I haven't read a book in a couple of years, I try to give it to someone who will. "

" Although this should not be so, historians reconsider presidencies based on how the presidents conduct themselves after leaving office. "

" The shelf life of a seventh-year State of the Union address is about five minutes. Presidents can propose stuff. They're probably not likely to get it done. "

" I never admit to wishing I'd written something by another author, but if my name mysteriously appeared on the title page of 'The Guns of August,' I wouldn't complain. "

" He used humor more effectively than any president since Abraham Lincoln. Reagan was not an especially warm person, but he appeared to be. Many people disliked his policies, but almost no one disliked him. "

" The historic dearth of labor was perhaps the central feature of the American economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. "

" 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. "

" I've been writing American history for a long time, and I've had a hard time finding strong, interesting female characters. There are women, of course, in American history, but they're hard to write about because they don't leave much of a historical trace, and they're not usually involved in high-profile public events. "

" Abraham Lincoln spoke out against the Mexican War. But once Americans were under fire, people who were on the fence felt obliged to support it. "

" 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. "

" I've been writing big stories of history, but there are a lot of fascinating little stories. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Most presidents have not considered 100 days a significant milepost. "

" Some years ago, I read Thomas Carlyle's history of the French Revolution, and I was very taken by the way he told the story, and it seemed as though I was right in the middle of things. And it took me a while to figure out how he achieved that effect, and one of the ways was to write it in the present tense. "

" Interest in the Founders has risen and fallen over time, as has admiration for them and their accomplishments. "

" Reagan's enduring value as a conservative icon stems from his resolute preaching of the conservative gospel, in words that still warm the hearts of the most zealous conservatives. Yet Reagan's value as a conservative model must begin with recognition of his flexibility in the pursuit of his conservative goals. "

" When you're actually president, the spin matters a lot less. "

" In some ways, I would be absolutely fascinated if Trump gets elected. "

" The Reagan Revolution has had no second act. "

" Every work of history is a combination of argument and narrative. The longer I write, the more I emphasize the narrative, the story, and the less attention I give to the argument. Arguments come and go. "

H. W. Brands

History

Work

" Reagan refused to demonize his foes. Instead he charmed them, with a few exceptions, including Tip O'Neill, the Democratic Speaker of the House and the embodiment of the liberalism Reagan sought to reverse. "