To put away one's own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.
Barbara TuchmanHuman beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot.
Barbara TuchmanAfter absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a world consisting entirely of strikes, crimes, power failures, broken water mains, stalled trains, school shutdowns, muggers, drug addicts, neo-Nazis, and rapists. The fact is that one can come home in the evening, on a lucky day, without having encountered more than one or two of these phenomena.
Barbara TuchmanAn essential element for good writing is a good ear: One must listen to the sound of one's own prose.
Barbara TuchmanIn 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.
Barbara Tuchman