Eugene McCarthy Quotes

I do think that part of literature's job is to comment on and participate in the social issues of the time.

I don't think you can ever be ahead of your time with cynicism about that subject. No, I don't think it was ahead of its time. I think it was very much a product of its time.

Hollywood looks to these young people now to say something to the world. I have nothing against that, I think a lot of people have things to say. But I think you need life experience.

There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age, I missed it coming and going.

I am 90. I can work day or night. I'm the same guy, but the polls show the effect of age. That's the issue.

Everyone matures. When I was Newt's age, I thought I had the right answer to things. The baby-boomers as political leaders are still on trial by the American people.

Next to the young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.

It would be well if, in studying the past, we could always bear in mind the problems of the present

Art and politics must move closer together. Reflection and action must be equally valid in good men if history is not to take one course and art another.

Le Pen is old; I'm young.

If we don't talk about the things that are happening, why are we talking about anything at all? Does something have to be a year old for me to have an opinion on it or a conversation with people about it?

Woe to these people who have no appetite for the very dish that their age serves up.

As an older person, I do feel an obligation to tell the story about what was really happening in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, as I saw it.

People come to my shows and know that they're going to hear about what's going on in the world - what's happening at the moment. My material is as new as anything on the dinner table.

He who stands most remote from his age is he who mirrors it best.

All history is contemporary history.

History is contemporary. Your understanding of history confirms what you think of the present. It's not neutral. I would be very surprised if people with a different view of the present, don't take issue with my view of the past. I just hope that people deal with the content of the film.

The past after all is only another name for someone else's present.

To me, age is not that important.

I think it's the job of the artist to reflect the times and also reflect his or her views of the world.

I think what we should do as historians is understand. And we can have our own views about how things turned out, but I think, in making judgements, we're getting into tricky territory.

My work as a whole is about excavating and shining a light on pieces of history that not only need to be seen and heard, but that can also add to the conversation about what's going on now.

The voice of history is often little more than the organ of hatred or flattery.

Someone said, 'The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.' Precisely, and they are that which we know.

It is safest to grasp the concept of the postmodern as an attempt to think the present historically in an age that has forgotten how to think historically in the first place.