The moment the curtain rose on that first ballet, I knew something wonderful and new had come into my life. I can still see the first scene. The ballet was Divertimento No. 15

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.

I used to work very long hours. Then I started to realize that the stuff that I was writing in the late afternoons, I was generally throwing out. So I quit earlier than I used to.

As you get older, you sometimes feel that it's harder and harder to get something new and wonderful to come into your life.

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

In a democracy, supposedly we hold power by what we do at the ballot box, so therefore the more we know about political power the better our choices should be and the better, in theory, our democracy should be.