I think a biography is only as interesting as the lives and times it illuminates.

There is always a certain leap of faith that editors have made with their nonfiction writers. If the trust is broken, things can get very embarrassing for the writers and the publisher.

By the '40s, Sam Goldwyn is a very serious man. By the '50s, he's the dean of American producers. To the end, he was Hollywood's gray eminence.

The successful editor is one who is constantly finding newwriters, nurturing their talents, and publishing them with critical and financial success.

When most people think of Woodrow Wilson, they see a dour minister's son who never cracked a smile, where in fact he was a man of genuine joy and great sadness.

I don't know of a soul who packed more living into 72 years than Charles Lindbergh did.

I am a compulsive worker. But I'm also a compulsive relaxer.

Clark Gable seemed fascinating all his life because there wasn't so much information about him. Today, you're on television all the time.

I read my first book on Woodrow Wilson at age 15, and I was hooked.

I'm so blessed to have such enlightened parents. It must have been very hard to watch their able-bodied son lock himself up in his old room for most of his 20s.

I like my subjects to be American, and not too dead, so I can interview people who knew them.

Words are tears that have been written down. Tears are words that need to be shed. Without them, joy loses all its brilliance and sadness has no end.

Nobody roots for Goliath.

For poets that have had my luck, Seldom write when they can kiss.

I never make a film with a message in mind. I'm more interested in the characters; how they are related to each other and the situation they're in.

I've accrued a kind of patience, I believe, loosely like change.

People were always pointing the finger at the fast food industry. And I was a big fan of personal responsibility - you know, no one is forcing you to eat. We're not geese being stuffed with corn.

The major organizing centers, like the labor movement, have been severely weakened in the United States by policy.

Truth can hurt so very much.

Food is a fairly significant aspect of my life. I have struggled mightily with food. With my weight. And I'm conscious of it. So I have a sensitivity to people who struggle with their weight.

One thing you learn about the novel as a form is that it's always smarter than you are.