I think it's best to pick a biographical subject who lives to a ripe old age. Older people tend to relax and speak their minds. They're dropping some of the masks that they've been wearing. There's a candor.

On Christmas morning when I was a child, my mother would leave a book wrapped at the foot of the bed, which was a hint that Santa had come. It was also her way of keeping us in bed a little longer before we went downstairs. So I've always associated books with happiness and gifts. And they are. I can't get enough of them.

There's an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing.

We must not think of learning as only what happens in schools. It is an extended part of life. The most readily available resource for all of life is our public library system.

I love to go to the places where things happen. I like to walk the walk and see how the light falls and what winter feels like.

To this noble end the delegates had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

I'm drawn particularly to stories that evolve out of the character of the protagonist.