Grant was something rare in that or any war. He could learn from experience.

I've never shown anybody a draft of anything.

I took five years on the first volume, five years on the second volume, and ten years on the third volume.

I used to write sonnets and various things, and moved from there into writing prose, which, incidentally, is a lot more interesting than poetry, including the rhythms of prose.

And I'm a slow writer: five, six hundred words is a good day. That's the reason it took me 20 years to write those million and a half words of the Civil War.

A fact is not a truth until you love it.

Longevity conquers scandal every time.