Nathaniel Philbrick Zitate auf Englisch

When I was at Brown, I wanted to write the great American novel, but I was too scared to take a creative course. I signed up for one, got in, and just didn't have the courage to go. I was a tremendously shy person, almost pathologically shy. The thought of peers critiquing my work - oh, God.

Nathaniel Philbrick

The irony is that Washington was, in reality, very much like Benedict Arnold. The big difference was that Washington was ultimately able to control his emotions, something Arnold never learned to do.

Nathaniel Philbrick

I had a great AP U.S. History teacher in Pittsburgh. We still exchange Christmas cards. She was the first teacher who said I was a good writer - and I'd never heard that before. And so I remember that, and I remember that level of loving the material and really loving writing about it.

Nathaniel Philbrick

For me, 'Moby-Dick' is more than the greatest American novel ever written; it is a metaphysical survival manual - the best guidebook there is for a literate man or woman facing an impenetrable unknown: the future of civilization in this storm-tossed 21st century.

Nathaniel Philbrick

As long as I can remember, I've been writing - first poems, then stories, and by my early teenage years I was also in love with sailing.

Nathaniel Philbrick

In the years to come, the combination of climate change and population growth could have a devastating effect on the planet and, needless to say, on humanity.

Nathaniel Philbrick

By 1760, the Nantucketers had virtually exterminated the local whale population.

Nathaniel Philbrick

Nantucket's English settlers, who first disembarked on the island in 1659, had been mindful of the sea's dangers. They had hoped to earn their livelihoods not as fishermen but as farmers and shepherds on this grassy isle dotted with ponds, where no wolves preyed.

Nathaniel Philbrick

Instead of being a page-turner, 'Moby-Dick' is a repository of American history and culture and the essentials of Western literature. The book is so encyclopedic that space aliens could use it to re-create the whale fishery as it once existed on the planet Earth in the midst of the 19th century.

Nathaniel Philbrick

'Johnny Tremain,' Paul Revere's Ride, today's Tea Partiers - you have to tune all that out to get at the real story.

Nathaniel Philbrick

Most Americans have no clue that before there were highways, there were only waterways to get through the wilderness. If you weren't on a lake or a river, you were in a jungle.

Nathaniel Philbrick

As a former English major, I have always been fascinated by the connections between literature and history.

Nathaniel Philbrick

Many of us came away from our youth thinking that the story of the Revolution was that the Americans were patriots fighting the oppressive British. It was kind of good versus evil, liberty versus tyranny. When you get into it, you find that it was much more complicated.

Nathaniel Philbrick

The American Revolution as it actually unfolded was so troubling and strange that once the struggle was over, a generation did its best to remove all traces of the truth.

Nathaniel Philbrick

Joseph Warren, like a lot of revolutionary leaders, was into Enlightenment literature.

Nathaniel Philbrick

If you live on Nantucket, you can't avoid its history, and 'Moby Dick' is the way most of us get into Nantucket's history.

Nathaniel Philbrick

He was born in 1741, a descendant of the Rhode Island equivalent of royalty. The first Benedict Arnold had been one of the colony's founders, and subsequent generations had helped to establish the Arnolds as solid and respected citizens.

Nathaniel Philbrick

XTC is my favorite band; I'm a huge Neil Young fan, Jayhawks, all that type of stuff. I like Death Cab for Cutie, also Ryan Adams. I try to impress my children: 'Have you listened to such-and-such?' They're not impressed.

Nathaniel Philbrick

I consider myself a writer who happens to write about history, rather than a historian. I was an English major in college. What I've learned about history is in the field, so to speak. Going into the archives and working with it directly.

Nathaniel Philbrick

I'll watch anything, from action to art films.

Nathaniel Philbrick

Some of my books sort of have a provocative take. Sometimes you find interesting things about characters that show they weren't necessarily the way people usually see them. It can make for lively conversations, but that's great. Spark a little controversy, get people to think about it. That's what it's all about.

Nathaniel Philbrick

The great lesson I get from 'Moby-Dick' is that when the times are bad, when there is great foreboding, there are still ways to go about living. It's through Ishmael that I find a kind of overall cosmic approach to a meaningful life in this meaningless world.

Nathaniel Philbrick

Even though I hadn't read a word of it, I grew up hating 'Moby-Dick.'

Nathaniel Philbrick

Nantucket was a Quaker-based culture, so they were not readers. There's a great Nantucket-based novel from the 19th century that Melville read for his research for 'Moby-Dick': 'Miriam Coffin' by Joseph Hart.

Nathaniel Philbrick

To my mind, an adventure is something a person willingly undertakes.

Nathaniel Philbrick

'Moby-Dick' has a remarkable way of resonating with whatever is going on in the world at that particular moment.

Nathaniel Philbrick