# The Greatest Generation Speaks - Author: [Tom Brokaw](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-brokaw.md) - Quotes: 7 - Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-brokaw/the-greatest-generation-speaks ## Quotes > If we are to heed the past to prepare for the future, we should listen to these voices of a generation that speaks to us of duty and honor, sacrifice and accomplishment. I hope more of their stories will be preserved and cherished as reminders of all that we owe them and all that we can learn from them. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-brokaw/the-greatest-generation-speaks/if-we-are.md) > My favorite reaction to The Greatest Generation, however, is expressed to me in unexpected moments- on a ski slope, in the airport, on a street in New York, in the Pentagon. Men about my age- cops, business executives, military men, construction workers- grab my hand, look me in the eye, and say, "I read your book. Thank you for helping me understand my father." Then they turn and walk away. > > Any journalist would be flattered to have his or her work become a catalyst for reflection and examination, but I have no illusion about my personal role in all this. I was merely the reporter, the vehicle for people's stories and the lessons they contained. So many veterans said of their service during the war, "It was an honor," and I feel in turn it was an honor to have written about the people in that book. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-brokaw/the-greatest-generation-speaks/my-favorite-reaction.md) > To the men and women of the greatest generation with gratitude and admiration [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-brokaw/the-greatest-generation-speaks/to-the-men.md) > I am a child of the American men and women who grew up in the Great Depression, who came of age in World War II and then devoted their adult years to the building of modern America- the remarkable people I wrote about in The Greatest Generation. As I walked the beaches of Normandy on the fortieth and fiftieth anniversaries of D-Day, I first began to fully realize how they had shaped my life. They were my parents and the parents of my friends, teachers, ministers, physicians, and hometown merchants, the men and women who showed me the way through their own exacting standards of hard work, sacrifice, and personal responsibility. I began to understand how much I owed them. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-brokaw/the-greatest-generation-speaks/i-am-a-child.md) > This is a book crafted by many memories, youthful insights, and the wisdom that come with seasons of despair and triumph. It is, most of all, another tribute to the men and women who rode the teacherous currents and sailed with the fair winds of most of the twentieth century. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-brokaw/the-greatest-generation-speaks/this-is-a-book.md) > This has been a deeply satisfying personal journey for me. Reading the letters, hearing the stories, and sharing the emotional themes was a familial experience, intimate and nurturing. In this age of electronic communication overload, there is something reassuring and eloquent about a single voice speaking in direct, honest, and sometimes painful fashion about a passage when time was measured day by difficult day. > > In a time of conspicuous self-indulgence, it is comforting to be absorbed in the lives of others who are selfless and grateful for whatever they have. Even those who were unhappy with oversights in The Greatest Generation made their points quietly and respectfully. p. 233 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-brokaw/the-greatest-generation-speaks/this-has-been.md) > When I set out to write The Greatest Generation, I was inspired by these people and by the realization that my world of endless possibilities, despite all its imperfections, was the work of these men and women. By writing their stories, I had finally found a way to say thank you. I wanted that book to be my gift to them, an expression of admiration for all they had achieved, and for the legacy they passed on to future generations. > > Of course, I hoped that the book would be well-received by the people about whom I was writing. As for younger generations, I wasn't sure what to expect. So many of the people I talked with from the World War II generation told me their kids weren't much interested in hearing about the Depression, the war, the sacrifices of the fifties. As for their grandchildren- a generation coming of age in a time of personal computers, digital video, and unprecedented prosperity- to them, stories about the Great Depression and World War II were like grainy black-and-white images in dusty schoolbooks or on late-night television. Wouldn't stories about people's lives during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s seem like ancient history to a thirtysomething or to a teenager shaping a life for America and the world in the twenty-first century? > > And so the enthusiastic response to The Greatest Generation has been not only a pleasant surprise, but also deeply gratifying in ways I could never have predicted. From what people say to me on the street and write in letters, some of which appear in this book, The Greatest Generation seems to have inspired within many families, communities, schools, and even corners of the political arena a reevaluation of the past, and a dialogue about the core values of that time and of the present. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-brokaw/the-greatest-generation-speaks/when-i-set.md)