Quality in a classical Greek sense is how to live with grace and intelligence, with bravery and mercy.

I, alas, must present myself somewhat ignominiously as a chef in a busy kitchen. Somewhere a novel is bubbling on a back burner, an old attempt at history may come out of the freezer.

History is always best written generations after the event, when clouded fact and memory have all fused into what can be accepted as truth, whether it be so or not.

I class myself as a manual laborer.

A President and his wise men can only propose; but Congress disposes. It is when President and Congress agree that American history marches forward.

There is no excitement anywhere in the world, short of war, to match the excitement of the American presidential campaign.

The power of the press in America is a primordial one. It sets the agenda of public discussion; and this sweeping political power is unrestrained by any law. It deter- mines what people will talk and think about-an authority that in other nations is reserved for tyrants, priests, parties and mandarins.