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

I think it's important to remember that these men are not perfect. If they were marble gods, what they did wouldn't be so admirable. The more we see the founders as humans the more we can understand them.

My love is to tell a story but I like stories that evolve from character, from the nature of the individuals involved.

I lament the want of a liberal education. I feel the mist of ignorance to surround me - Nathanael Greene

History is about life. It's awful when the life is squeezed out of it and there's no flavor left, no uncertainties, no horsing around. It always disturbed me how many biographers never gave their subjects a chance to eat. You can tell a lot about people by how they eat, what they eat, and what kind of table manners they have.

Housetops were covered with 'gazers'; all wharves that offered a view were jammed with people ... As British officers happily reminded one another, it was the largest fleet ever seen in American waters. In fact it was the largest expeditionary force of the 18th century, the largest, most powerful force ever sent forth by Britain or any other nation.

To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is.