Among the reasons that you go into journalism, I suppose, are some rather idealistic, even foolish reasons. In my case one of the reasons was I wanted to explain how things really work, how political power really works.

I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term.

To my mind, the prose in a non-fiction work that's going to endure has to be of the same quality as the prose in a work of fiction that endures.

Nobody believes this, but I write very fast.

The right of a minority is so important in a democracy.

Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.

The New York City Ballet is obviously speaking to a whole new generation and bringing it the same wonder and beauty that it brought previous generations