Take the teacher not the course. Find out who the great professors are - the great teachers - and take their courses because a subject that you may not think you're interested in may turn out to be infinitely fascinating because of the way it's taught.

History isn't just what happened, but what happened to whom and why and what would have been different if the cast of characters had been different.

People often ask me if I'm working on a book. That's not how I feel. I feel like I work in a book. It's like putting myself under a spell. And this spell, if you will, is so real to me that if I have to leave my work for a few days, I have to work myself back into the spell when I come back. It's almost like hypnosis.

I love to go to the places where things happen. I like to walk the walk and see how the light falls and what winter feels like.

The more we see the founders as humans the more we can understand them.

First of all, you can make the argument that there's no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past.

Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.