H. W. Brands Quotes

The biographer has two lives: The one she leads, and the one she ultimately understands.

But history is neither watchmaking nor cabinet construction. It is an endeavor toward better understanding.

Writing has always been the primary way I make sense of the world.

Information, usually seen as the precondition of debate, is better understood as its by-product.

When you write, you take the ball and you hold it up to the light and you turn it slowly, and let people draw their own conclusions. And try to bring empathy to all sides of the equation.

I just wanted to tell good stories that helped explain the world to people.

Reading will put you into the minds and hearts of others. It might help you understand why other people do what they do sometimes.

i can't understand her" well son, you might as well try to understand the sun". derived form the book:fires of heaven by robert jordan.

If you have the power to see things through somebody else's eyes, it's like going from black and white to color or two dimensions to three dimensions.

I don't talk things, sir. I talk the meaning of things.

We hear nothing so clearly as what comes out of silence.

Where everyone else sees a straight line, you see a maze, and when I'm done talking to you, the maze starts to make more sense --Reply by Dove to Aly's silent inquiry

Nobody is ever misunderstood at a fireside; he may only be disagreed with.

We see, not change of aspect, but change of interpretation.

We had the experience but missed the meaning. And approach to the meaning restores the experience in a different form.

What's a book? Everything or nothing. The eye that sees it all.

What you think is the point is not the point at all but only the beginning of the sharpness.

When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true.

Every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. (23-24)

Many people may listen, but few people actually hear.

The question is not what you look at – but how you look & whether you see.

I think sometimes you don't understand how to convey an idea, depending on the moment you're living in.

The problem for us is less to discover the way it really is than to see the meaning of the way.

... it's always interesting when one doesn't see. If you don't see what a thing means, you must be looking at it wrong way round.

I'm usually one of these guys analyzing what does happen and putting it in focus and context.