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All Presidents start out pretending to run a crusade but after a couple of years they find they are running something less heroic and much more intractable: namely, the presidency.

— Alistair Cooke Talk About America (1968)

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More quotes by Alistair Cooke

Moving among wretched people in mean places, as I often saw him do, he had the impulses of a saint but not the serenity.

Six Men (1977)

He was at his best only when the going was good.

Six Men (1977)

In life no such colour brightened the grey picture of a man devoted to the daily study of warfare on several continents with all the ardour of a certified public accountant.

Curiosity endows the people who have it with a generosity in argument and a serenity in their own mode of life which springs from their cheerful willingness to let life take the form it will.

He measured all his fellow workers by the test of professionalism, and a professional is a man who can do his best work when he doesn't feel like it.

Six Men (1977)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Alistair Cooke (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.