Washington once advised his adopted grandson that where there is no occasion for expressing an opinion, it is best to be silent. For there is nothing more certain than that it is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.

The best argument for mutual funds is that they offer safety and diversification. But they don't necessarily offer safety and diversification.

The Great Inflation of the 1970s destroyed faith in paper assets, because if you held a bond, suddenly the bond was worth much less money than it was before.

There is no country in the world where it's as easy to find venture capital in the stock market as the United States.

I'm a biographer; I can live with a little hyperbole.

In the 1920s you could buy stocks on margin. You could put 10 percent down and borrow the rest against your stocks.

The richly cadenced prose is hypnotic, the research prodigious, the analysis acute, the mood spellbinding, and the cast of characters mythic in scale. I cannot conceive of a better book about Capitol Hill. An unforgettable, epic achievement in the art of biography.