Quotes by Nigel Hamilton - Page 1 | QuoteForever

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Biography is, simply, the orphan of academia.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Academia
Orphan
Biography
Simply
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Thanksgiving is a time of togetherness and gratitude.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Thanksgiving
Gratitude
Togetherness
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I'm not promising to write 'JFK 2' - but one day, I might!
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Jfk
Promising
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Bad reviews are the bane of an author's post-publication existence.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Bane
Reviews
Author
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If the reader doesn't understand what you're saying, you're talking to yourself.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Reader
Talking
Talking To Yourself
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Selective memory is surely one of nature's most effective ways of ensuring the survival of our species.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Selective
Species
Survival
Effective
Ensuring
Memory
Surely
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After university, I taught secondary school for a while and opened a bookshop in Greenwich, just east of London.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Greenwich
Secondary School
Opened
Secondary
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I've never really understood the term 'Post-Impressionism' as more than a label for Cezanne, Gauguin and van Gogh.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Term
Understood
Never More Than
Gogh
Label
Van
Van Gogh
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It must have been the fall of 1952 when my father returned to London sporting a neck tie emblazoned with the words 'I Like Ike.'
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Neck
Ike
Returned
Tie
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For all the failures of naval, air and army defense, the men who died at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines would not die in vain.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Air
Army
Defense
Died
Naval
Philippines
Vain
Harbor
Pearl
Pearl Harbor
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Traditionally Presidents Day was Washington's birthday. It was celebrated as a public holiday on February 22 each year, in peace or in war.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Birthday
February
Holiday
Celebrated
Public
Washington
Each Year
Presidents
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I grew up and lived in a Britain in which strikes and the threat of strikes had become part of the social fabric - and it was not very nice.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Britain
Fabric
Strikes
Social Fabric
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My father had left school at 18, without enough money to go to college - and, with four sons after the war, said he could still not afford to do so.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Afford
Enough Money
Sons
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I was an 18-year-old kid, and I was in the heart of things in Washington. My interest in American politics and, particularly, the Kennedys, began then.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
American Politics
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In daring to re-tell the stories of the last twelve American presidents, both public and private, I knew I would incur some outrage with 'American Caesars.'
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Daring
Outrage
Twelve
Presidents
Private
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My father had risen in the British Army under the revolutionary aegis of General Montgomery, who was mad about training for battle, not muddling into disaster.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Army
Battle
Disaster
Montgomery
Revolutionary
Risen
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President Gerald Ford was no intellectual, but he had served with distinction in combat as a naval gunnery officer and then as Congressman for a quarter century.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Combat
Congressman
Distinction
Naval
Ford
Officer
Quarter
Quarter Century
Served
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In my case, I belong to a group of aspiring and practicing biographers in Boston. We meet once a month for a coupla hours. It's become my lifeline - forgive the pun.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Boston
Hours
Pun
Month
Aspiring
Belong
Case
Forgive
Group
Lifeline
Meet
Practicing
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The White House tapes, recording Nixon's nefarious doings from Watergate to the bombing of Vietnam, made frightening reading once made public on the orders of Congress.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Bombing
Frightening
Vietnam
Watergate
White House
Nixon
Orders
Recording
Tapes
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I am all for charity in judging the men who have occupied the Oval Office over the past seventy years, given the huge responsibilities the president carries across the world.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Charity
Given
Huge
Judging
Office
Oval
President
Across
Carries
Occupied
Oval Office
Responsibilities
Seventy
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To be sure, administrations since Ronald Reagan had gone out of their way to massage and 'spin' news to the president's advantage, while the media did its best to un-spin it.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Administration
Advantage
Massage
Spin
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We should honor Franklin Delano Roosevelt today as the greatest commander in chief of the Armed Forces of the United States in our history, bar none - including President Lincoln.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Armed Forces
Honor
Armed
Bar
Chief
Commander
Forces
Lincoln
Roosevelt
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I'm fascinated by the concept of what I call 'clusters of creativity': the Brontes, the Waughs, families with several geniuses. I'm one of four; competition among siblings has to be a factor.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Clusters
Competition
Fascinated
Sibling
Concept
Factor
Geniuses
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For the serious biographer, history and the life story of a real individual are inseparably intertwined. Get the facts wrong, or distort them, and the life story gets distorted: becomes fiction.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Intertwined
Life Story
Distort
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I belong to the Boston Biographers Group - and get my monthly 'fix' from them. Where else can I sit down for two hours with people who understand the challenge I face, daily, as a life-chronicler?
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Boston
Belong
Monthly
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Both JFK and George W. Bush were the sons of wealthy U.S. ambassadors and thus privileged to meet distinguished figures, to travel, and to see the world and think about its problems if they chose.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Distinguished
Figures
Privileged
Ambassador
Bush
Chose
George
George W
George W. Bush
Jfk
Sons
Thus
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Republican isolationists had certainly tied the hands of every U.S. president, year after year - berating Franklin Roosevelt in particular and his attempts to ready the nation for inevitable attack.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Franklin
Inevitable
Tied
Attack
Attempts
Franklin Roosevelt
Roosevelt
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As a student, I had stayed with Winston Churchill; later, I had lunched with Harold Macmillan - in fact, had met most of the post-war prime ministers of Great Britain from Douglas-Home to Tony Blair.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Blair
Britain
Great Britain
Ministers
Post War
Churchill
Student
Harold
In Fact
Met
Prime Ministers
Stayed
Tony
Tony Blair
Winston
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President Ford was taken for a ride by his predecessor, whom he unpardonably pardoned; Jimmy Carter was also taken for a ride, but by his successor, Ronald Reagan, over the return of the Iran hostages.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Carter
Iran
Jimmy
Return
Pardoned
Ford
Hostages
Jimmy Carter
Predecessor
Ride
Successor
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What George W. Bush learned in his pre-presidential years - and what he omits in his new memoirs - was not how to lead a nation, but how, with sufficient toughness, to cheat the democratic system to get elected.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Sufficient
Toughness
Bush
Elected
George
George W
George W. Bush
Memoirs
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Regularly, customers asked for a book on Greenwich, and there was none. After all, Elizabeth I was born there. The Observatory is known all over the world; the Royal Naval College is there. So I decided to do it.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Customers
Greenwich
Naval
Royal
Elizabeth
Observatory
Regularly
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At times, the reader of World War II literature must think every American, from general to G.I., kept a war diary, later mined for memoirs of the conflict. Few diaries, however, were published in their own right.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Conflict
Diaries
World War Ii
War World Conflict
Every American
Memoirs
Published
World War
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Looking back as an historian, I find myself having great respect for Ronald Reagan's consistency: his absolute conviction that the Soviet Union - the only competing world empire at the time - was bound to collapse!
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Collapse
Competing
Consistency
Great Respect
Historian
Looking Back
Soviet
Soviet Union
Absolute
Time Respect Great
Bound
Empire
Union
Reagan
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Bill Clinton beat Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, for the White House in 1992 by focusing on 'the economy, stupid' - and Clinton's victory led, in time, to the longest sustained boom in American history.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
American History
Clinton
Economy
Stupid
White House
Beat
Bill
Bill Clinton
Boom
Bush
Focusing
George
Led
Longest
Sustained
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That's the miracle of Amazon! It's like Internet dating. In the early days, you could get slimed as an author on Amazon by someone bearing a grudge, or jealous, or whatever. And because there were so few reviews posted, this stank.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Jealous
Dating
Grudge
Author
Bearing
Early Days
Posted
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The moral was, in time of anarchy, tough leadership is the only solution - even though the collateral damage may be heartbreaking. Mrs. Thatcher's strident, take-no prisoners approach was in some ways repugnant, but it was surely necessary.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Leadership
Anarchy
Approach
Collateral
Damage
Heartbreaking
Moral
Tough
Mrs
Prisoners
Repugnant
Solution
Surely
Thatcher
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Dwight D. Eisenhower, in my judgment, will go down in history as one of the four 'great' presidents since the U.S. reluctantly became an empire in World War II; Richard Nixon as the nearest to a sociopath by the time he was compelled to resign.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Compelled
Dwight
Judgment
World War Ii
Time War History
By The Time
War Time History
Eisenhower
Empire
Nearest
Nixon
Presidents
Reluctantly
Resign
Richard Nixon
World War
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I became an American on Nov. 4, 2010, at an elegant ceremony in Great Hall of Bullfinch's Faneuil Hall, Boston, beneath a vast painting of Daniel Webster debating the preservation of the Union with Robert Hayne of South Carolina, before the Civil War.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Boston
Carolina
Ceremony
Civil War
Elegant
Preservation
South Carolina
Beneath
Daniel
Debating
Vast
Hall
Union
Robert
Webster
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Since his inauguration in 2009, President Obama has upheld FDR's vision of America as a nation that keeps its word - a nation still committed to uphold the 'four freedoms' that President Roosevelt set down in the great Atlantic Charter of August 1941.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
August
Charter
Committed
Inauguration
President Obama
Atlantic
Fdr
Roosevelt
Upheld
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I once wrote that Lord Moran, Churchill's doctor, had doctored his diaries as well as his famous patient. That was true but unfair. Although their authenticity as contemporary, daily accounts is often questionable, the observations are quite wonderful.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Accounts
Authenticity
Contemporary
Diaries
Patient
Questionable
Unfair
Doctor
Churchill
Observations
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The story of FDR as U.S. Commander in Chief is a heroic war story of a president who had already overcome great adversity in facing polio but who went on to take the reins of our armed forces in the greatest conflagration in human history - on our behalf.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
History
War
Adversity
Armed Forces
Behalf
Heroic
Human History
Polio
President
Reins
Overcome
War History Great
Greatest
Armed
Chief
Commander
Facing
Fdr
Forces
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Some of the History Channel's documentaries involve docudrama segments and are highly speculative - but there seems, on the part of the producers, to be a real determination to get at the history behind our past - not the sex, which is left to drama shows and entertainment channels.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Determination
Documentaries
Channel
Channels
Involve
Segments
Speculative
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In publishing 'JFK: Reckless Youth' almost twenty years ago, I had gotten into trouble myself with the Kennedys. Not because of my portrait of JFK - which was highly laudatory - but because I had described his parents, Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, in less-than-flattering terms.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Publishing
Reckless
Years Ago
Youth
Fitzgerald
Gotten
Jfk
Joseph
Portrait
Terms
Twenty
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Our only president who has died as U.S. commander in chief in war is Franklin Delano Roosevelt - who died of a cerebral hemorrhage or massive stroke on April 12, 1945, only three weeks before the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces he had laid down as implacable Allied policy two years before.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
April
Armed Forces
Cerebral
Massive
Surrender
Unconditional
Allied
Armed
German
Chief
Commander
Forces
Implacable
Laid
Roosevelt
Stroke
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Listening to the stories my colleagues are researching and grappling with - in terms of access to documents, psychological understanding of their subjects, artful composition and determination to extrapolate from an individual's life lessons and insights that we can all learn from - I am each time overwhelmed by joy.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Colleagues
Composition
Determination
Documents
Grappling
Lessons
Overwhelmed
Psychological
Subjects
Artful
Life Time Joy
Each Time
Extrapolate
Insights
Life Lessons
Researching
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We've sweated and torn out our hair trying to reconstruct our chosen lives, to fashion them like literary sculptures, at once monumental and yet human. We've applied all of our intelligence, our empathy, our critical faculties, our compassion - and we think, in our delusion, that it's still 1960, and our work is going to get noticed.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Chosen
Compassion
Critical
Delusion
Torn
Applied
Faculties
Literary
Monumental
Noticed
Reconstruct
Sculptures
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Sports biography at its best. Rich in period detail, anecdote, and fresh perspective, Strong Boy paints both the good and the bad sides of success, as America's growing celebrity culture turned a simple Irish American gladiator into a national, in fact international hero. A very human story with profound parallels for our sports-obsessed culture today!
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Sports
Hero
Strong
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Packed with fascinating personal perspective and testimony, Michael Takiffs A Complicated Man wholly justifies its title. The book is far more than a kaleidoscopic oral biography of President Bill Clinton. Aspect by aspect, it guides us through the struggles of postmodern America, as the most ambitious baby boomer of his generation seeks to modernize the Democratic Party-and, as in a Greek drama, is fated to be destroyed. Veritably, an all-American saga, with a cast of thousands-favorable and unfavorable.
Nigel Hamilton / Biographer
Baby
Drama
Party
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