|
|
|
|
|
|
|
David McCullough
Two Pulitzer Prizes for Biography
Jimmy Stewart -- the part Jimmy Stewart is playing -- is very important. He's almost always playing the same part, and that is the seemingly ordinary, decent American who -- when put to the test in an extreme situation -- rises to the occasion and does the extraordinary. And that's an old, old story in our American way of life. In fact, it's the story of Harry Truman, which is what I've spent the largest part of my creative writing life working on, a project of 10 years. That's the story of Harry Truman, the seemingly ordinary fellow who -- put to the test -- rises to the occasion and does the extraordinary. And, I think we like that story because that's the story of our country.
View Interview with David McCullough
View Biography of David McCullough
View Profile of David McCullough
View Photo Gallery of David McCullough
|
|
|
David McCullough
Two Pulitzer Prizes for Biography
David McCullough: I think the American dream is the good society. It's the city on the hill. It's what the Founding Fathers talked about, where justice is a way of life, where fundamental rights of citizenship are honored, where the individual counts, but where pulling together in the spirit of all being in the same boat can achieve more than any individual can in isolation or independently. I think it means education. This country was founded on the idea that education for all -- education at its best -- is not just good for the individual, it's essential to the system. The system won't work unless we have an educated population. Democracy demands it. It's the old line in Jefferson: "Any nation that expects to be ignorant and free, expects what never was and never will be."
View Interview with David McCullough
View Biography of David McCullough
View Profile of David McCullough
View Photo Gallery of David McCullough
|
|
|
James Michener
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novelist
The other is that I do think we have paid less attention to the values of our society than we should have. Through the church, through great education, through our newspapers, through the agencies that we have. I think that a nation that loses touch with its essential values, the values which characterize it and determine it, is really playing a very dangerous game because the time comes when you forget them. And when you forget them, you lose them. And when you lose them, you may lose your forward impetus. Let me be very frank about that. From what I know, and the wonderful fact that we are a continental country, from ocean to ocean, we are all that that implies. All the great resources. I am quite confident that we are good until about the year 2050. I think we can absorb errors, and we can absorb civil disturbance, and we can absorb defeats as we did with Vietnam. We can absorb a lot of knocks. I think we are safe, but I'm not so sure after that. If there were to be a continuing provision of generations that did not know what America is all about or did not have tough rigorous inner discipline, or did not produce goods that will keep the country rich and prosperous -- we might be in very serious trouble.
View Interview with James Michener
View Biography of James Michener
View Profile of James Michener
View Photo Gallery of James Michener
|
|
|
Norman Mineta
Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation
Norman Mineta: Well, my dad had come as a 14-year-old from Japan in 1902, and he worked for Speckles Sugar Company down in Speckles, near Salinas. Then in about 1910, they moved him from Speckles in Salinas to San Martín, just south of San José, to set up a sugar beet operation there, and he did that. Then, in 1917, he was part of that influenza epidemic, maybe 1918, so he ended up in county hospital for six, seven months, and as a result of that, they said that he couldn't go back to farming, it was too strenuous, so he moved into San José, doing a number of odd jobs. One of them, one day he was interpreting in court, and these fellows came up to him and said, "How would you like to go into the insurance business?" And he said, "Well, I know nothing about insurance." So they said, "We would train you." So actually, in 1920, he started in the insurance business. So that was the setting of the family in the early twenties. In 1928, he built a home in San José, and then I was the youngest of five children, and I was born in 1931. So for us, life was pretty idyllic. Every summer we had our vacations, Lake Tahoe, Santa Cruz, Crater Lake, Arizona, Grand Canyon, wherever. It was a family of seven, and it was just a strong family, and we just had a great time growing up.
View Interview with Norman Mineta
View Biography of Norman Mineta
View Profile of Norman Mineta
View Photo Gallery of Norman Mineta
|
| |
|
