I never wanted to do biography just to tell the life of a famous man. I always wanted to use the life of a man to examine political power, because democracy shapes our lives

My interest is in power. How power works.

You come in off the street, through the doors of the theater. You sit down. The lights go down and the curtain goes up. And you're in another world

You have to be an extremely good reader to appreciate what a good writer is. There are some people who are completely insensitive to good writing.

Sometimes during a ballet I'll look around and see all these rows of intent faces, concentrating on this beautiful thing up on the stage.

I like new ballets because they're totally new. As you get older, new experiences are harder and harder to come by, so it's pretty great to have a new experience.

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.