22 Nigel Hamilton Quotes for You to Enjoy

Nigel Hamilton

British Author

Born: Feb 16, 1944

Father Great History Time War World

Related authors: Dorothy L. Sayers George Eliot George Orwell Ian Fleming James Allen Marcus Buckingham Neil Gaiman Virginia Woolf

The story of FDR as U.S. Commander in Chief is a heroic war story of a president who had already overcome great adversity in facing polio but who went on to take the reins of our armed forces in the greatest conflagration in human history - on our behalf. Nigel Hamilton

War Adversity Great History Overcome Heroic President Our Facing Take Had Armed Armed Forces Forces Polio Greatest Commander Chief Behalf Human Story Human History Who Reins

Our only president who has died as U.S. commander in chief in war is Franklin Delano Roosevelt - who died of a cerebral hemorrhage or massive stroke on April 12, 1945, only three weeks before the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces he had laid down as implacable Allied policy two years before. Nigel Hamilton

War Surrender Three Before Down President Our April Franklin Stroke Only Allied Weeks Unconditional Had He Implacable Armed Armed Forces Massive Policy Forces Commander Years German Chief Died Laid Roosevelt Cerebral Who Two

As a student, I had stayed with Winston Churchill; later, I had lunched with Harold Macmillan - in fact, had met most of the post-war prime ministers of Great Britain from Douglas-Home to Tony Blair. Nigel Hamilton

Republican isolationists had certainly tied the hands of every U.S. president, year after year - berating Franklin Roosevelt in particular and his attempts to ready the nation for inevitable attack. Nigel Hamilton

Inevitable Year Nation Every President Franklin Franklin Roosevelt Attack Had Attempts Particular Tied Ready His Hands After Republican Roosevelt Certainly

I once wrote that Lord Moran, Churchill's doctor, had doctored his diaries as well as his famous patient. That was true but unfair. Although their authenticity as contemporary, daily accounts is often questionable, the observations are quite wonderful. Nigel Hamilton

Daily Doctor Wonderful Unfair Patient Once Churchill Had Observations True Contemporary Wrote Well Although Lord His Diaries Questionable Authenticity Accounts Quite Often Famous

I became an American on Nov. 4, 2010, at an elegant ceremony in Great Hall of Bullfinch's Faneuil Hall, Boston, beneath a vast painting of Daniel Webster debating the preservation of the Union with Robert Hayne of South Carolina, before the Civil War. Nigel Hamilton

War Great Before Painting Beneath Carolina Daniel Civil Civil War Webster Boston Vast Robert Hall Became South Debating South Carolina American Ceremony Union Elegant Preservation

We've sweated and torn out our hair trying to reconstruct our chosen lives, to fashion them like literary sculptures, at once monumental and yet human. We've applied all of our intelligence, our empathy, our critical faculties, our compassion - and we think, in our delusion, that it's still 1960, and our work is going to get noticed. Nigel Hamilton

Work Fashion Intelligence Compassion Hair Think Our Once Monumental Out Critical Torn Reconstruct Faculties Delusion Empathy Like Still Get Trying Going Human Literary Them Noticed Sculptures Chosen Lives Applied

The moral was, in time of anarchy, tough leadership is the only solution - even though the collateral damage may be heartbreaking. Mrs. Thatcher's strident, take-no prisoners approach was in some ways repugnant, but it was surely necessary. Nigel Hamilton

Looking back as an historian, I find myself having great respect for Ronald Reagan's consistency: his absolute conviction that the Soviet Union - the only competing world empire at the time - was bound to collapse! Nigel Hamilton

Time Myself Great Respect World Consistency Looking Looking Back Conviction Back Collapse Find Having Only Absolute Great Respect Bound Empire Reagan His Historian Soviet Soviet Union Union Competing

In publishing 'JFK: Reckless Youth' almost twenty years ago, I had gotten into trouble myself with the Kennedys. Not because of my portrait of JFK - which was highly laudatory - but because I had described his parents, Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, in less-than-flattering terms. Nigel Hamilton

Myself Youth Parents Trouble Rose Reckless Had Joseph Almost Highly Terms Because Gotten His Years Years Ago Fitzgerald Which Twenty Publishing Portrait Kennedy Kennedys

I'm not promising to write 'JFK 2' - but one day, I might! Nigel Hamilton

Day One Day Promising Write Might

It must have been the fall of 1952 when my father returned to London sporting a neck tie emblazoned with the words 'I Like Ike.' Nigel Hamilton

Words Father Fall Must London Like Tie Returned Been Neck

Dwight D. Eisenhower, in my judgment, will go down in history as one of the four 'great' presidents since the U.S. reluctantly became an empire in World War II; Richard Nixon as the nearest to a sociopath by the time he was compelled to resign. Nigel Hamilton

War Time Great History World Will Judgment Richard Nixon Down Presidents Nixon Reluctantly He Empire Since Became Go Dwight Eisenhower Richard Nearest Compelled Resign Four World War World War II By The Time

Bill Clinton beat Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, for the White House in 1992 by focusing on 'the economy, stupid' - and Clinton's victory led, in time, to the longest sustained boom in American history. Nigel Hamilton

Time History Victory Father Stupid White White House President Boom Focusing Beat Longest Economy House George Clinton Led American Sustained American History Bush Bill Bill Clinton

To be sure, administrations since Ronald Reagan had gone out of their way to massage and 'spin' news to the president's advantage, while the media did its best to un-spin it. Nigel Hamilton

Best News Gone President Way Out Administration Spin Had Advantage Since Massage Sure Reagan Did While Ronald Reagan Media

What George W. Bush learned in his pre-presidential years - and what he omits in his new memoirs - was not how to lead a nation, but how, with sufficient toughness, to cheat the democratic system to get elected. Nigel Hamilton

I belong to the Boston Biographers Group - and get my monthly 'fix' from them. Where else can I sit down for two hours with people who understand the challenge I face, daily, as a life-chronicler? Nigel Hamilton

Daily People Challenge Face Sit Down Group Else Monthly Boston Hours Understand Fix Get Where Them Who Belong Two

I am all for charity in judging the men who have occupied the Oval Office over the past seventy years, given the huge responsibilities the president carries across the world. Nigel Hamilton

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