Napoleon could never imagine that some people loved their country as much as he loved his own.

I work very hard on the writing, writing and rewriting and trying to weed out the lumber.

I just thank my father and mother, my lucky stars, that I had the advantage of an education in the humanities.

Read somewhat in the English poets every day. You will find them elegant, entertaining and constructive companions through your whole life.

Napoleon could never imagine that some people loved their country as much as he loved his own.

Any nation that expects to be ignorant and free," Jefferson said, "expects what never was and never will be." And if the gap between the educated and the uneducated in America continues to grow as it is in our time, as fast as or faster than the gap between the rich and the poor, the gap between the educated and the uneducated is going to be of greater consequence and the more serious threat to our way of life. We must not, by any means, misunderstand that.

There are innumerable writing problems in an extended work. One book took a little more than six years. You, the writer, change in six years. The life around you changes. Your family changes. They grow up. They move away. The world is changing. You're also learning more about the subject. By the time you're writing the last chapters of the book, you know much more than you did when you started at the beginning.