Coolidge was a federalist. You go back and read him and it's almost intimidating to write about him because he writes better himself than anyone. He's one of the best writers as presidents go.

The 1920s are the decade that signaled the arrival of a gift that still means a lot to us: Saturday.

I'm not sure Roosevelt was quite a monster, he just did a poor job on the economics.

The lucky biographers find themselves drawn into a sort of friendship with their subject.

Right now we're concerned about budget. Right now we're concerned about the prospect of interest rate rise. We're concerned about government corruption, government handing out deals to specific groups. Coolidge fixed a problem like that. He came into a rough time and he, and Harding before him, fixed that by budgeting.

People value Halloween, like Valentine's Day, because they can tell themselves that it's not merely secularized but actually secular, which is to say, not Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Muslim.

Today many politicians suggest that where the federal government does not act, there must be anarchy. That view is odd, blinkering out the work of state and towns, which until recently did much of our charitable and cultural work. That view also blinkers out the role of mutual societies and churches.