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

Good leadership requires you to surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree with you without fear of retaliation.

There are 20,000 million books I could have to read, but I can pick the ones and know that I'm learning something that I didn't know before. That's the glory of writing. It's not even so much the writing, it's what you learn - especially history - because so much of it is research.

I think the most important thing I wanted to say at various times to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt was that it seemed so sad to me that - I really believe they loved each other and had a great deal of affection - but because of that early hurt in their marriage, there was a certain kind of distance from then on, until their deaths actually. So at times, I just wanted to push them together and say, "Come on, you guys! I know you love each other. This is crazy!"

He (William Howard Taft) had little patience with the unconscious arrogance of conscious wealth and financial success.

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

I am a historian. With the exception of being a wife and mother, it is who I am. And there is nothing I take more seriously.