William Manchester
William Manchester
William Raymond Manchester was an American author, biographer, and historian. He was the author of 18 books which have been translated into over 20 languages. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal and the Abraham Lincoln Literary Award...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth1 April 1922
CountryUnited States of America
men sublime shy
He [Gen. Douglas MacArthur] was a great thundering paradox of a man, noble and ignoble, inspiring and outrageous, arrogant and shy, the best of men and the worst of men, the most protean, most ridiculous, and most sublime.
history preparation dresses
An Edwardian lady in full dress was a wonder to behold, and her preparations for viewing were awesome.
feel-good trying doe
I try to be as ruthless as possible. I ask myself of each sentence, "Is it clear? Is it true? Does it feel good?" And if it's not, then I rewrite it.
rocks color underwater
The colors of the underwater rock [are] as pale and delicate as those in the wardrobe of an 18th-century marchioness.
powerful past men
One strange feeling, which I remember clearly, was a powerful link with the slain, particularly those that had fallen within the past hour or two. There was so much death around that life seemed almost indecent. Some men's uniforms were soaked with gobs of blood. The ground was sodden with it. I killed, too.
gleam public-speaking macarthur
It is true that despite occasional gleams of Churchillian eloquence he [Gen. Douglas MacArthur] usually spoke poorly. He was far more effective in conversations a deux. But those who dismiss him as shallow because his rhetoric was fustian err.
hero way heroism
His [Gen. Douglas MacArthur's] own heroes were Lincoln and Washington, and in some ways he resembled them.
men play actors
Actors who have tried to play Churchill and MacArthur have failed abysmally because each of those men was a great actor playing himself.
beach ocean elderly
The coconut trees, lithe and graceful, crowd the beach like a minuet of slender elderly virgins adopting flippant poses.
men tasks matter
A man's task is to find himself, and if he fails in this, it doesn't much matter what else he finds.
facts millions
The sum of a million facts is not the truth.
faith two church
He [Gen. Douglas MacArthur] never went to church, but he read the Bible every day and regarded himself as one of the world's two great defenders of Christendom. (The other was the pope.)
men volunteer history
They fought on with a devotion which would puzzle the generation of the 1980s. More surprising, in many instances it would have baffled the men they themselves were before Pearl Harbor. Among MacArthur's ardent infantrymen were cooks, mechanics, pilots whose planes had been shot down, seamen whose ships had been sunk, and some civilian volunteers.
men loner void
But there are no loners. No man lives in a void. His every act is conditioned by his time and his society.