Rick Atkinson Quotes

My father belongs to the generation that fought the war in the 1940s. When I was a kid my father told me stories - not so many, but it meant a lot to me. I wanted to know what happened then, to my father's generation. It's a kind of inheritance, the memory of it.

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.

I had the first integrated Army band in World War II.

Part of what I loved - and love - about being around older people is the tangible sense of history they embody. I'm interested in military history, for instance, because both my grandfathers fought in World War II. I'm interested in writing because one of those grandfathers wrote books.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that the 761st was Patton's best tank unit and nobody knew about it.

World War II is the war that made our world. There's no question about that. The history of all the years in which I will spend my life, every single one, that is the seminal event of the history that we will experience.

The men who make history have not time to write it.

I agree with... actually it was [Joseph] Stalin who said that [Winston Churchill] he was a man who changed the history of the world and I think, if he had not been there in 1940, it might very well have been the case that we would have collapsed like France, and I shall honor him always for that.

I experienced Nazism as a child. Like many of my generation, I was motivated by the desire to prevent another war at any price.

I would go in the university stacks and pull out books like 'Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War II' when I was 12 or something, and I'd spend hours reading about the engines in some of those planes.

I suppose that I just grew up knowing, in a very vivid way, that if it hadn't been for the men who fought in the Second World War, we'd all be living in a very different world now.

Money is great, but history is something that you can never get rid of and act like it didn't happen.

The Puritans left behind so full a record of what they thought and did that scholars cannot resist the temptation to make the most of it.

It is so important that British children are taught about the World Wars that their great grandparents fought in and lived through. It was a terrifying time.

I think that historical processes have meaning and that we have to accept this - or else face utter despair.

I try to make my kids happy, so when they grow up they can look back and see a father who did important things for their country and tried to make history.

Make history or be a part of it.

I had a question. "Why does the name Pearl Harbor sound so familiar?" The lieutenant colonel's eyes narrowed. "Pearl Harbor is the most famous U.S. military base in the world," he said crisply. "It's the only place on U.S. soil that has been attacked in a wars, since the Revolutionary War." None of this was ringing a bell, but you already know I'm totally uneducated. Gazzy leaned over to whisper, "It was a movie with Ben Affleck." Ah. Now I remembered.

You can make history, or you will be vilified by it.

The work of today is the history of tomorrow, and we are its makers.

I always wanted to be historical, from almost a baby on, I felt that way about it.

I'm a big fan of General Douglas MacArthur and General George Patton.We have a few generals that have been so incredible to me. Now we have 200.

It is not heroes that make history, but history that makes heroes.

I've lived history. I've made history, and I know I'll have my place in history. That's not egoism.

The good things in history are usually of very short duration, but afterward have a decisive influence on what happens over long periods of time.