I was trying to learn about Lyndon Johnson when he was young and creating his first political machine in the Texas hill country. I moved there for three years. You had to learn that world

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.

Life requires more than a whisper of wisdom

Half the world is composed of idiots, the other half of people clever enough to take indecent advantage of them

A guy should make the woman he is dating feel different and more special than anyone else in his life

Respecting people is an important part of life, whether it's the person doing janitorial work or the person above you. It doesn't matter who you are: I'm going to respect you.

Some people advise you what to do and some people forbid what not to do, but the genuine people just ask you if they can do anything for you.

Not he who scorns the Saviour's yoke Should wear his cross upon the heart.

Only that, nothing more - a tiny beam of light to show some hidden aspect of reality, to help decipher and understand it and thus to initiate, if possible, a change in the conscience of some readers.

Easter is reflecting upon suffering for one thing, but it also reflects upon Jesus and his non-compliance in the face of great authority where he holds to his truth - so there's two stories there.

...It’s not the lies that hurt people. It’s the willingness of everyone else to believe them..." Aiden, Upon the Midnight Clear by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Lead a life of your own design, on your own terms -not one that others, or the environment have scripted for you.