Truman Quotes - Page 3

• Truman Capote famously claimed to have nearly absolute recall of dialogue and used his prodigious memory as an excuse never to take notes or use a tape recorder, but I suspect his memory claims were just a useful cover to invent dialogue whole cloth.

  Joshua Foer

  Memories, Tape, Use

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• As you may recall, Truman was extremely unpopular when he finally left Washington in 1953, thanks largely to the Korean War. Today, however, he is thought to have been a solidly good president, a 'Near Great' even, in the terminology of those surveys of historians they do every now and then.

  Thomas Frank

  War, President, May

  "George W. Is No Martyr" by Thomas Frank, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 21, 2009.

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• Every President I think I've ever known, except Truman, has thought they didn't quite get done what they wanted done. And toward the end of their Administrations, they were disappointed and wished they had done some things differently.

  Billy Graham

  Thinking, President, Administration

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• I always go back to Harry Truman: Should we drop an atomic bomb to save 100,000 lives? That's a hell of a decision to make. Did he make that decision by himself? No, he had advisers.

  Lee Iacocca

  Decision, Harry Truman, Bombs

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• Almost everything Truman did in foreign affairs I approve of.

  Stephen Ambrose

  Affair, Foreign Affairs

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• I love Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Flannery O'Connor. I read a lot of American writers.

  Kiran Desai

  Tennessee, American Writer

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• If Obama's vision of the public sector is socialism, then so too were the visions of Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon.

  Jeff Greenfield

  Harry Truman, Vision, Dwight Eisenhower

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• I liked Truman very much. He was precise and businesslike. After a while, it was his turn.

  Lord Mountbatten

  Turns, Precise

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• I have three favorite politicians: Reagan, Truman, and Bobby Kennedy - Bobby for showing remarkable political courage despite being loathed by many on both sides.

  Joe Scarborough

  Political, Three, Sides

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• Jimmy Carter as President is like Truman Capote marrying Dolly Parton. The job is just too big for him.

  Rich Little

  Jobs, President, Bigs

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• With the Truman book, I wrote the entire account of his experiences in World War I before going over to Europe to follow his tracks in the war. When I got there, there was a certain satisfaction in finding I had it right - it does look like that.

  David McCullough

  War, Book, Europe

  Interview with Bruce Cole, www.neh.gov.

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• My lasting impression of Truman Capote is that he was a terribly gentle, terribly sensitive, and terribly sad man.

  Alvin Ailey

  Men, Lasting Impressions, Sensitive

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• Often we comfort ourselves only with words, but if we pray enough, the conviction will come too that Christ is our King, not Stalin, Bevins, or Truman. That He has all things in His hands, that 'all things work together for good for those that love Him.

  Dorothy Day

  Kings, Hands, Working Together

  Dorothy Day, Peter Day (1999). “On Pilgrimage”, p.85, A&C Black

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• We had been frightened of atomic weapons since 1945. In those days I became convinced - and remain convinced now - that, after Hitler, Truman was the greatest murderer in the world.

  Martin Niemoller

  World, Weapons, Frightened

  "Martin Niemöller, 1892-1984" by James Bentley, (p. 213), 1984.

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• Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, others, knew how to lead. They knew how to ask the American people for the right things.

  John F. Kerry

  People, Harry Truman, Franklin

  "Text Of Bush-Kerry Debate II (5)" by Jarrett Murphy, www.cbsnews.com. October 8, 2004.

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• My favourite president, and the one I admired most, was Harry Truman.

  Jimmy Carter

  Harry Truman, President, Favourite

  "Jimmy Carter: 'We never dropped a bomb. We never fired a bullet. We never went to war'". Interview with Carole Cadwalladr, www.theguardian.com. September 10, 2011.

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• We must uphold the promise of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton and never allow the President and his Republican friends to threaten Social Security by putting it on the Wall Street trading block.

  John F. Kerry

  Wall, Block, Promise

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• [President Truman] was free of the greatest vice in a leader, his ego never came between him and his job.

  Dean Acheson

  Jobs, Leader, Ego

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• I'm a Harry Truman, JFK, Scoop Jackson and Bill Clinton Democrat.

  Joe Lieberman

  Harry Truman, Bills, Clinton

  Source: www.foxnews.com

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• I remember writing 'The One I Can't Have' at the kitchen table. I was looking at a picture of Truman Capote with Marilyn Monroe and that's where I started. It doesn't make any sense because he was gay, but it was just the idea of the short guy and the beautiful blonde out of his league. That's where I started, but very quickly it became about me.

  Teddy Thompson

  Beautiful, Writing, Gay

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• I am the heterosexual Truman Capote.

  Joseph Epstein

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. August 31, 2003.

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• I never graduated from Iowa, but I was only there for two terms - Truman's and Eisenhower's.

  Alex Karras

  Inspirational, Football, Teenager

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• That was the principle of reparations to which President Truman agreed at Potsdam. And the United States will not agree to the taking from Germany of greater reparations than was provided by the Potsdam Agreement.

  James F. Byrnes

  Agreement, President, Principles

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• Obama has been perhaps the most partisan President since Truman. He hasn't learned to be civil - note his insulting speech to Paul Ryan, who did us the courtesy of scoring a budget. The president has to talk to Republicans when it comes to the debt ceiling. He has reached the debt ceiling before anyone expected.

  Grover Norquist

  Insulting, President, Ceilings

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• I was in Independence, Missouri when Johnson signed the Medicare bill, with Truman standing there. Truman had first proposed Medicare, but couldn't get it through.

  Helen Thomas

  Independence, Bills, Firsts

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