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? H. W. Brands Read Quote
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. H. W. Brands Read Quote
I had long known the story of Aaron Burr, but when I heard about his remarkable daughter, Theodosia, about the relationship between the two and about her tragic disappearance, I knew I wanted to tell their story. H. W. Brands Read Quote
Reagan is the subject of ongoing political debate, and a lot of liberals don’t want to take Reagan any more seriously than they did when he was president. I understand why they don’t, but they should. H. W. Brands Read Quote
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. H. W. Brands Read Quote
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. H. W. Brands Read Quote
I’ve been writing big stories of history, but there are a lot of fascinating little stories. H. W. Brands Read Quote
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. H. W. Brands Read Quote
On style points alone, Donald Trump makes GWB look magnificently presidential. H. W. Brands Read Quote
When a president doesn’t know the policy, it doesn’t make for a very effective leader. H. W. Brands Read Quote
