Doris Kearns Goodwin quotes

Once a president gets to the White House, the only audience that is left that really matters is history. (Doris Kearns Goodwin)
The past is not simply the past, but a prism through which the subject filters his own changing self-image. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Those who knew Lincoln described him as an extraordinarily funny man. Humor was an essential aspect of his temperament. He laughed, he explained, so he did not weep. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
The only protection as a historian is to institute a process of research and writing that minimizes the possibility of error. And that I have tried to do, aided by modern technology, which enables me, having long since moved beyond longhand, to use a computer for both organizing and taking notes. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
I think after Sandy Hook, when Obama went out, and he talked a lot about gun control and met with the parents, there was a sense that something was going to happen. But then, I guess, the power of special interests was greater than public sentiment. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
People tease me about knowing somehow that Obama would put Clinton into the cabinet, and everybody would talk about a team of rivals. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Good leadership requires you to surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree with you without fear of retaliation. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
As a historian, what I trust is my ability to take a mass of information and tell a story shaped around it. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
I shall always be grateful for this curious love of history, allowing me to spend a lifetime looking back into the past, allowing me to learn from these large figures about the struggle for meaning for life. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
That is what leadership is all about: staking your ground ahead of where opinion is and convincing people, not simply following the popular opinion of the moment. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
My books are written with a strong chronological spine. (Doris Kearns Goodwin)
Ironically, the more intensive and far-reaching a historian's research, the greater the difficulty of citation. As the mountain of material grows, so does the possibility of error. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
I wish we could go back to the time when the private lives of our public figures were relevant only if they directly affected their public responsibilities. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
An adult friend of Lincoln's: "Life was to him a school. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
I now rely on a scanner, which reproduces the passages I want to cite, and then I keep my own comments on those books in a separate file so that I will never confuse the two again. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
I am a historian. With the exception of being a wife and mother, it is who I am. And there is nothing I take more seriously. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
I really believe that what happens one day affects the next, and I think that came from that experience of learning that if I told the score inning by inning, play by play, it built up to its natural climax. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
A lot of times when people are on campaigns, it can be like a movie set. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Where's the progress that we're going to see in Afghanistan? You have to keep public support both on the economy and the war or these things will really become troubling. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Though [Abraham Lincoln] never would travel to Europe, he went with Shakespeare's kings to Merry England; he went with Lord Byron poetry to Spain and Portugal. Literature allowed him to transcend his surroundings. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
We've got to figure out a way that we give a private sphere for our public leaders. We're not gonna get the best people in public life if we don't do that. (Doris Kearns Goodwin)
My recurring nightmare is that someday I will be faced with a panel: Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson all of whom will be telling me everything I got wrong about them. I know that Johnson's out there saying, 'Why is it that what you wrote about the Kennedys is twice as long as the book you wrote about me?' View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin
I've been to the White House a number of times. View quote
Doris Kearns Goodwin