I've always felt that no one understands why some books of non-fiction endure and some don't, because there's not much understanding among many non-fiction writers that the narrative is terribly important.

At the ballet, you really feel like you're in the presence of something outside the rest of your life. Higher than the rest of your life.

Lyndon Johnson, as majority leader of the United States Senate, he made the Senate work

I don't think of my books as being biographies. I never had any interest in doing a book just to write the life of a great man. I had zero interest in that. My interest is in power. How power works.

You can use a biography to examine political power, but only if you pick the right guy.

If it's coming near the end of a chapter and I'm really getting into it, I tend to get up earlier and earlier, just because I'm excited to get to work.

My interest is in power. How power works.