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

A nation that forgets its past can function no better than an individual with amnesia.

My shorthand answer is that I try to write the kind of book that I would like to read. If I can make it clear and interesting and compelling to me, then I hope maybe it will be for the reader.

I could not do what I do without the kindness, consideration, resourcefulness and work of librarians, particularly in public libraries... What started me writing history happened because of some curiosity that I had about some photographs I'd seen in the Library of Congress.

There's no such thing as a foreseeable future.

There are no people on earth in whom a spirit of enthusiastic zeal is so readily kindled, and burns so remarkably, as Americans

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