It took me five years on Lyndon Johnson, ten years on the Kennedys, six years on the Roosevelts. Inevitably, you get shaped by the people that you're thinking about during that period of time.

Better to have your enemies inside your tent pissing out, then to have them outside your tent pissing in.

Lyndon Johnson is still the most formidable, fascinating, frustrating, irritating individual I think I've ever known in my entire life. He was huge, a huge character, not only standing six feet four, but when you talked to him, he violated the normal human space between people. He was a great storyteller. The problem was that half his stories, I discovered, weren't true.

My books are written with a strong chronological spine.

Go ahead, and fear not. You will have a full library at your service.

As a historian, what I trust is my ability to take a mass of information and tell a story shaped around it.

I still think about that one Jamiroquai video a lot.