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Now I'm the father of three children; I'm not able to go live on a bus and do semesters around the country like I did when I was young.
Douglas Brinkley -
Truman has become the patron saint of failed presidents because he left office with a 27 percent approval rating, and people were saying, 'To err is Truman,' yet look at what he did: the Marshall Plan, the creation of NATO, the Truman Doctrine.
Douglas Brinkley
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I was stunned to find out there had never been a serious, scholarly biography ever written on Rosa Parks.
Douglas Brinkley -
Rosa Parks' entire career has been one as working as a civil rights activist.
Douglas Brinkley -
If you're a Kennedy and you go to Italy or you go to Argentina, you're treated as royalty. And in the United States, we're endlessly fascinated by the family.
Douglas Brinkley -
For Dylan, it seems, life is always the next gig. Changing pace and location are essential to his survival as an artist.
Douglas Brinkley -
We can only imagine the history of the free world today if, at the end of the Civil War, there had been two countries: the United States and the Confederate States of America.
Douglas Brinkley -
President Obama had a few historians at the White House for a couple of dinners. I was lucky enough to be one of those asked, and he was very interested in Ronald Reagan, and I came away feeling that.
Douglas Brinkley
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Administration policies seem to tacitly encourage those who live below sea level in New Orleans to relocate permanently, to leave the dangerous water's edge for more prosperous inland cities such as Shreveport or Baton Rouge.
Douglas Brinkley -
Nixon was always willing to be bipartisan, so there are a lot of surprises in the man.
Douglas Brinkley -
There is nobody that's ever going to fill Ted Kennedy's shoes, and that's a tall order for somebody in the family to try to live up to.
Douglas Brinkley -
February was always the cruelest month for Hunter S. Thompson. An avid NFL fan, Hunter traditionally embraced the Super Bowl in January as the high-water mark of his year.
Douglas Brinkley -
Richard Kerry not only was a pilot in World War II, but was a civil servant. He did not come from money.
Douglas Brinkley -
As a composer, Dylan now fits comfortably alongside George Gershwin or Irving Berlin, though he grumpily refuses to wear any man's collar.
Douglas Brinkley
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John Kerry wants to be the hero in his own drama. He likes King Arthur and the Round Table. He likes the young swashbuckling Churchill, and he loved the early antics of Theodore Roosevelt.
Douglas Brinkley -
When we settled our country, the dark forest was considered in some ways evil and something that you needed to plow or, later, bulldoze. We now have a new understanding of the interconnectedness of ecosystems and the need for bird flyways and why all species matter.
Douglas Brinkley -
I feel like I'm always learning from people.
Douglas Brinkley -
With the newspapers cheering, Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt chose a top-notch regiment of more than 1,250 men. They were first called Teddy's Texas Tarantulas and went through three or four other monikers until Roosevelt's Rough Riders stuck.
Douglas Brinkley -
New Orleans is just a microcosm of Newark and Detroit and hundreds of other troubled urban locales.
Douglas Brinkley -
Animals interest me more than anything else.
Douglas Brinkley
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What makes 'American Pie' so unusual is that it isn't a relic from the counterculture but a talisman, which, like a sacred river, keeps bringing joy to listeners everywhere. When 'American Pie' suddenly is played on a jukebox or radio, it's almost impossible not to sing along.
Douglas Brinkley -
Knievel seemed braver and more brazen - and more unhinged - than any other athlete-cum-thrill-seeker of his era.
Douglas Brinkley -
While the scars of the monstrous Civil War still remain, the wounds have closed since 1865, in large part, because of the civility of Grant and Lee.
Douglas Brinkley -
The answer to New Orleans's levee woes is painfully obvious: money and willpower.
Douglas Brinkley