I was able to sit at Lincoln's side and see how he thought and how he acted, and how he felt about what was going on around him. I felt the pressures that were on him. You can see what people were writing to him, how they were nudging him.

The big biography of Lincoln necessarily had to do so much with his political career, his ambitions, his accomplishments in public, with less time to spend on his private life, his inner life, and I thought this might be a way of getting at that.

If you think about it, the historian's task is like that of the detective.

Lincoln was not a good impromptu speaker; he was at his best when he could read from a carefully prepared manuscript, though maybe a teleprompter could have helped that!

I love mysteries, and I read them every night before I go to bed.

Well, it seems to me Lincoln, I suppose, is kind of a model of a particular sort of presidency, a presidency that first of all is elected by a minority of the votes.

I'm not sure Lincoln would fare well if he were a presidential candidate today.