I'm very aware how many distractions the reader has in life today, how many good reasons there are to put the book down.

The truth isn't just the facts. You can have all the facts imaginable and miss the truth, just as you can have facts missing or some wrong, and reach the larger truth.

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

One of the regrets of my life is that I did not study Latin. I'm absolutely convinced, the more I understand these eighteenth-century people, that it was that grounding in Greek and Latin that gave them their sense of the classic virtues: the classic ideals of honor, virtue, the good society, and their historic examples of what they could try to live up to.

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.

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

Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. - John Adams