Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Alistair Cooke (British-American Journalist)

Alistair Cooke (1908–2004,) fully Alfred Alistair Cooke, was a British-American journalist and broadcaster. He is best known for his lively and insightful interpretations of American history and culture.

Born in Salford, Lancashire, England, Cooke pursued literary and theatrical interests at Jesus College, Cambridge, and graduated summa cum laude in 1930. He won a Commonwealth Fund fellowship to study in the United States at Yale (1932–33) and then at Harvard (1933–34.)

After stints as a Hollywood scriptwriter, film critic for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC,) and correspondent for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC,) Cooke returned to the United States in 1937. In the late 1930s, Cooke reported on American affairs for BBC radio and several major British newspapers. He was the Guardian’s chief U.S. correspondent 1947–72.

Cooke’s 15-minute radio program, Letter from America, began in 1946 and concluded with its 2,869th episode on 20-Feb-2004. It was broadcast to fifty-two countries on the BBC World Service. It was the longest-running radio program in history. His America (1973,) based on the award-winning program, was a best-seller in the United States.

Cooke also hosted Omnibus on CBS 1952–60. As host of the Masterpiece Theatre on PBS 1971–92, Cooke interpreted British culture by presenting BBC dramatic television programming to American audiences.

Cooke’s works include the critical biography Douglas Fairbanks: The Making of a Screen Actor (1940,) The Vintage Mencken (1955,) The Patient Has the Floor (1986,) America Observed (1988,) Memories of the Great and the Good (1999,) and The Americans (1977; with Robert Cameron.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Alistair Cooke

Golf is an open exhibition of overweening ambition, courage deflated by stupidity, skill scoured by a whiff of arrogance
Alistair Cooke
Topics: Golf

A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn’t feel like it.
Alistair Cooke
Topics: Experts, Doing Your Best, Professionalism

In the best of times, our days are numbered anyway. So it would be a crime against nature for any generation to take the world crisis so solemnly that it put off enjoying those things for which we were designed in the first place: the opportunity to do good work, to enjoy friends, to fall in love, to hit a ball, and to bounce a baby.
Alistair Cooke

The best compliment to a child or a friend is the feeling you give him that he has been set free to make his own inquiries, to come to conclusions that are right for him, whether or not they coincide with your own.
Alistair Cooke
Topics: Compliments

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.
Alistair Cooke
Topics: Curiosity

Man has an incurable habit of not fulfilling the prophecies of his fellow men.
Alistair Cooke
Topics: Prophecy

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

Curiosity is free-wheeling intelligence.
Alistair Cooke
Topics: Curiosity

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