The source of our suffering has been our timidity. We have been afraid to think....Let us dare to read, think, speak, write.

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.

You have to get inside the people you are writing about. You have to go below the surface. And that's to a very large degree what all writers are doing - they're trying to get below the surface. Whether it's in fiction or poetry or writing history and biography. Some people make that possible because they write wonderful letters and diaries. And you have to sort of go where the material is.

The past after all is only another name for someone else's present.

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

You've got to marinate your head, in that time and culture. You've got to become them." (Speaking about researching, and reading, and immersing yourself in History)

My strong feeling is that we must learn more about how we learn. I'm convinced that we learn by struggling to find the solution to a problem on our own with some guidance, but getting in and getting our hands dirty and working it.