Barbara Tuchman
Barbara Tuchman
Barbara Wertheim Tuchmanwas an American historian and author. She won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for The Guns of August, a best-selling history of the prelude to and the first month of World War I, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China, a biography of General Joseph Stilwell...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth30 January 1912
CountryUnited States of America
struggle men giving
In the search for meaning we must not forget that the gods (or God, for that matter) are a concept of the human mind; they are the creatures of man, not vice versa. They are needed and invented to give meaning and purpose to the struggle that is life on Earth, to explain strange and irregular phenomena of nature, haphazard events and, above all, irrational human conduct. They exist to bear the burden of all things that cannot be comprehended except by supernatural intervention or design.
running fun writing
Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence. It is no fun to write lumpishly, dully, in prose the reader must plod through like wet sand. But it is a pleasure to achieve, if one can, a clear running prose that is simple yet full of surprises. This does not just happen. It requires skill, hard work, a good ear, and continued practice.
taken writing degrees
If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity.
art exercise imagination
What his imagination is to the poet, facts are to the historian. His exercise of judgment comes in their selection, his art in their arrangement.
what-matters irrelevant
Above all, discard the irrelevant.
book communication quality
To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.
research conducting finished
One must stop conducting research before one has finished. Otherwise, one will never stop and never finish.
doors library closing-doors
Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library.
writing sentences satisfying
Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence.
writing conditions
I have always been in a condition in which I cannot not write.
past tree old-friends
The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard
fighting history police
The Germans could not get over the perfidy of it. It was unbelievable that the English, having degenerated to the stage where suffragettes heckled the Prime Minister and defied the police, were going to fight.
massacres commerce zeal
When commerce with Moslems flourished, zeal for their massacre declined.
moral reluctance seems
We seem to be afflicted by a widespread and eroding reluctance to take any stand on any values, moral, behavioral or esthetic.