By the '40s, Sam Goldwyn is a very serious man. By the '50s, he's the dean of American producers. To the end, he was Hollywood's gray eminence.

I think a biography is only as interesting as the lives and times it illuminates.

I am a compulsive worker. But I'm also a compulsive relaxer.

The successful editor is one who is constantly finding newwriters, nurturing their talents, and publishing them with critical and financial success.

I'm so blessed to have such enlightened parents. It must have been very hard to watch their able-bodied son lock himself up in his old room for most of his 20s.

When most people think of Woodrow Wilson, they see a dour minister's son who never cracked a smile, where in fact he was a man of genuine joy and great sadness.

I read my first book on Woodrow Wilson at age 15, and I was hooked.