...Had proven himself a leader of remarkable ability, a man not only of enterprising ideas, but with the staying power to carry them out.

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.

It was an utterly phenomenal achievement.

The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement... To do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance.

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.

I feel that history is in many ways the most important of all subjects because it is about everything and because it's about who we are and how we came to be the way we are.

I love Dickens. I love the way he sets a scene.