Dodd continued to hope that the murders would so outrage the German public that the regime would fall, but as the days passed he saw no evidence of any such outpouring of anger.

Great murderers, like great men in other walks of activity, have blue eyes.

Place has always been important to me, and one thing today's Chicago exudes, as it did in 1893, is a sense of place. I fell in love with the city, the people I encountered, and above all the lake and its moods, which shift so readily from season to season, day to day, even hour to hour.

I was never concretely aware of the extent of anti-Semitism in the United States and in the upper levels of the State Department.

I started reading the big histories and the small histories, the memoirs and so forth. At some point, I found the diary of William E. Dodd.

The intermittent depression that had shadowed him throughout his adult life was about to envelop him once again.

Whenever I finish a book, I start with a blank slate and never have ideas lined up.