You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history.

My love is to tell a story but I like stories that evolve from character, from the nature of the individuals involved.

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

May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.

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.

I had been writing for about twelve years. I knew pretty well how you could find things out, but I had never been trained in an academic way how to go about the research.

It was an utterly phenomenal achievement.