Nathaniel Philbrick Quotations

One of the questions I face when working on a book about a historical event is whether I should visit the actual place that I'm writing about. No matter how scrupulously maintained a historic house or battlefield may be, it is nothing like it was in the long-ago past.

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.

Whatever you read, there's no better place to read than the cockpit or the berth of a boat. It's kind of like being in a womb.

Reading 'Moby-Dick' helps you discover how to live.

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

For me, the hardest thing in the world is how to start a book.

As an author of narrative history, I read a lot of history books.

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

Martin Scorsese, everything he does, I've got to see. And Jack Nicholson, I've got to see what he does.

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.