I would love to do an unauthorized biography about Congress. It's like a secret society up there.

A hero is someone we can admire without apology.

Presidents often disappoint, but first ladies rarely do.

Studies have been done showing that there really are gender differences, that women do bring more congeniality and compromise to the table.

JFK used to say the bishops and the cardinals were all Republicans, but the nuns were Democrats! I sort of believe that too.

My biography of Frank Sinatra is not paean to his music but rather an illumination of the man behind the music, who once described himself as 'an 18-karat manic-depressive who lived a life of violent emotional contradictions with an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as happiness.

I admired Eugene McCarthy’s courage and although I left his Senate staff after four years to accept a job as the researcher on the editorial page of the Washington Post, I remained an admirer.