16 Quotes & Sayings By Douglas Brinkley

Douglas Brinkley is a Professor of History at Rice University. His most recent work is The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Before coming to Rice in 2011, Brinkley taught at Yale for two decades as the Gilbert R. Ross Professor of History and held visiting professorships at Princeton, Northwestern, and Berkeley Read more

In addition to his academic work, Brinkley has written nine books and received fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served as a consultant to PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and ABC’s Good Morning America. Brinkley is a native New Orleanian who loves jazz, opera, and good food.

1
Cronkite is not a genius at anything except being straight, honest, and normal. Douglas Brinkley
2
When he (Walter Cronkite) drank, he had an appetite for both history and political bullshit. Douglas Brinkley
3
Unlike most fine writers, he wasn't in love with his own words. Douglas Brinkley
4
If life were fattening, Walter Cronkite would weigh 500 pounds. Douglas Brinkley
5
Cronkite was always one step short of disillusionment. Douglas Brinkley
6
Reagan never cottoned to dictators. He was pure in this notion in a true belief that democracy was the best solution in the world because it spoke to people's hopes and dreams and aspirations, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of speech. Douglas Brinkley
7
Having recorded his first album, 'Tapestry, ' in 1969, in Berkeley, California, during the student riots, McLean, a native New Yorker, became a kind of weather vane for what he called the 'generation lost in space.' Douglas Brinkley
8
If Reagan had intelligence information that showed that the upheaval in Egypt is actually Democratic in spirit, then he would have, I believe, turned his back on Mubarak, even though there's a long friendship between the United States and Egypt. Douglas Brinkley
9
One thing 'not right' on the 50th anniversary of the Selma marches is the sad fact that the Edmund Pettus Bridge hasn't been renamed the John Lewis Bridge. Douglas Brinkley
10
Stubbornness is a positive quality of presidential leadership - if you're right about what you're stubborn about. Douglas Brinkley
11
The myth-making about Appomattox started from the moment Lee left the courthouse on his horse to travel to Richmond. Douglas Brinkley
12
John Kerry had a very vivid imagination as a young person. I mean, he actually did go and take his bicycle from Norway to go camp in Sherwood Forest to be around the ghost of Robin Hood. Douglas Brinkley
13
There is no real way to categorize McLean's 'American Pie' for its hybrid of modern poetry and folk ballad, beer-hall chant and high-art rock. Douglas Brinkley
14
It's Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency. Clean Air and Water Acts. Endangered Species Act. Promoted affirmative action. One could go on and on with Nixon as a New Deal liberal on domestic policy and a hawk, but one with great geo-political skills. Douglas Brinkley
15
I think there's a green side to John Kerry, if you like, that he's an environmental activist. His record on the environment is as best as you have on a pro-environment record of anybody in the U.S. Senate. Douglas Brinkley