Rapid change, accommodating it can be one of the great human capacities. But living through it can be the stuff of stress and often suffering.

If you write something the White House doesn't like, they take you in and say, 'If you ever write something like you did today, nobody from the White House will ever talk to you again

Many years later, a psychiatrist friend of mine said something to us. He said, "Respect denial." It's a powerful force.

By virtue of some of the ways the game is played, in terms of message discipline, in terms of access for reporters, and especially in the way that sources and subjects, especially famous subjects, treat the media, almost by default there's more news that's falling into books.

Civilizations rise and fall on confidence. America had figured out a way to borrow money to manufacture it.

I don't have to deal with the issues of the daily news cycle.

There are many instances in which those at the uppermost levels of the White House were feeling the President [Barack Obama] was not fully informed of the flow of events and, in some cases, where policies were going in the White House.