Where's the progress that we're going to see in Afghanistan? You have to keep public support both on the economy and the war or these things will really become troubling.

An adult friend of Lincoln's: "Life was to him a school.

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.

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.

When I do research, I have done - 90 percent of my time is the research, the other ten percent is the writing. So I don't have to face a blank piece of paper. I can look at this as a quote that I have from somewhere.

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

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