I used to work very long hours. Then I started to realize that the stuff that I was writing in the late afternoons, I was generally throwing out. So I quit earlier than I used to.

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.

When an artist paints a flower, she borrows the beauty from nature and adds fragrance from her own heart.

Some websites are completely optimized for simple conver- sion, and it’s easy to tell. The design centers on one clear call to action, a vivid lozenge labeled with a verb.

And after all what is a lie? Tis but The truth in masquerade.

I wanted to be scared again ... I wanted to feel unsure again. That's the only way I learn the only way I feel challenged.

It became like a symbolic thing, to be “an artist.” After Duchamp, I realized that being an artist is more about a lifestyle and attitude than producing some product.

Make films whenever and however you can - don't take no for an answer.

And whereas [Donald] Trump let two or three hanging curveballs go by, [Mike] Pence will not, unless they have a strategy to let them go by.

I've read that under trauma, that you have this ability to kind of disconnect from the experience.

Prime Minister Modi [Narendra] is strong enough, and he's accomplished much.

I have always tried to stay current.