You can't love what you don't know much about. You can't convince, stimulate, hold the attention, teach, if you don't know what you're talking about.

I think that we need history as much as we need bread or water or love.

I think that a good education ought to be in part the idea that ease and joy are not synonymous. Some of the most fulfilling pleasures of life are to be found in work - found in work you love to do, work you want to do, work that makes you want to get out of bed in the morning.

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.

Yes, this is a dangerous time. Yes, this is a time full of shadows and fear. But we have been through worse before and we have faced more difficult days before. We have shown courage and determination, and skillful and inventive and courageous and committed responses to crisis before.

I often think of that when I hear people say that they haven't time to read.