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.

They all start competing against Lincoln as the greatest president. And the [library] building becomes the symbol, the memorial to that dream.

I liked the thought that the book I was now holding had been held by dozens of others.

I think with Lyndon Johnson, the most important thing I learned was that he never had the sense of security that comes from inside. It always depended on other people making him feel good about himself, which meant that he was always beholden, continually needing to succeed. He could never stop. There was such a restlessness in him.

The past is not simply the past, but a prism through which the subject filters his own changing self-image.

I think some people who go into public life, if they go in needing the applause of thousands, they're never going to work out successfully in the end, because they don't know who they are apart from the crowds.

I still think about that one Jamiroquai video a lot.