I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term.

At the ballet, you really feel like you're in the presence of something outside the rest of your life. Higher than the rest of your life.

I never wanted to do biography just to tell the life of a famous man. I always wanted to use the life of a man to examine political power, because democracy shapes our lives

The Senate is an unknowing world

Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.

Robert Moses wasn't elected to anything. We're taught that in a democracy power comes from being elected. He had more power than anyone, and he held it for 48 years

The moment the curtain rose on that first ballet, I knew something wonderful and new had come into my life. I can still see the first scene. The ballet was Divertimento No. 15

The New York City Ballet is obviously speaking to a whole new generation and bringing it the same wonder and beauty that it brought previous generations

Ballet is sort of a mystery to me. And I don't want to unravel that mystery.

I deliberately made an effort not to become an expert on the ballet.

I don't think of my books as being biographies. I never had any interest in doing a book just to write the life of a great man. I had zero interest in that. My interest is in power. How power works.

A system should be viable, it should let your dream to be developed and born

Words are life. Carefully choose your words.

When love is your power, then you will not have anything to fear.

Believe me, man, there are people who are going to have way more troubles mentally than I am.

Nothing comes so naturally to a human being as anxiety and worry.

I hate my smile - I think I look like an absolute wally when I smile, I really do.

Tell him to go to hell.

There are always those times when you're going to be down. It's how you step through it that makes you the person you are.

I believed that our own public would keep this in mind even in this serious crisis, and stand firm if only we at the front continued to stand firm too.

You can create many lies from Truth, but you cannot create any truths from lies.