It is through history that we learn who we are and how we got that way, why and how we changed, why the good sometimes prevailed and sometimes did not.

Writing is not the easiest way to make a living. Your work long hours, usually all by yourself. It is not a way to make money.

Andrew Johnson was a Southerner generally who proclaimed that his native state of Tennessee was a country for white men.

The great wars of the 20th Century made it into the worst Century ever.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries you have these great nation states hurling their young men at one another. The victory was really going to rest on who could do the best job of bringing up their kids to become efficient and effective soldiers. That's pretty grandiose, I guess, but I do think that, and thank God it's been the armies of democracy that have emerged from this as the triumphant armies.

Washington and Jefferson were both rich Virginia planters, but they were never friends.

Friends never cheat on each other, or take advantage, or lie. Friends do not spy on one another, yet they have no secrets. Friends glory in each other's successes and are downcast by the failures. Friends minister to each other, nurse each other. Friends give to each other, worry about each other, stand always ready to help. Perfect friendship is rarely achieved, but at its height it is an ecstasy.