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

I think the most important advice is, a person doesn't have to find out right away. It's not like their first attempt at finding a profession is the only one they're going to find. I might well have gone down other paths, and it still might have been okay. But if you find something that you love, and if it keeps deepening with each new experience, then just stay with it.

I keep thinking that history runs in cycles, and that some day certain large issues will come before the country again. There will be leaders that inspire young people. I don't think it means that it's over forever, but I'm getting pretty impatient. I'm hoping it comes soon, so that my young people can know that experience that we knew in the '60s, and that the World War II generation knew during the '40s.

People tease me about knowing somehow that Obama would put Clinton into the cabinet, and everybody would talk about a team of rivals.

Years of concentration solely on work and individual success meant that in his retirement [Lyndon Johnson] could find no solace in family, in recreation, in sports or in hobbies. It was almost as if the hole in his heart was so large that even the love of a family, without work, could not fill it.

If your ambition comes at the price of an unbalanced life, that there's nothing else that gives you comfort but success, it's not worth it.

Though [Abraham Lincoln] never would travel to Europe, he went with Shakespeare's kings to Merry England; he went with Lord Byron poetry to Spain and Portugal. Literature allowed him to transcend his surroundings.