Lyndon B. Johnson thought he'd have the boys home from Vietnam by Christmas - for four Christmases in a row (he never shifted course, and lost his presidency for it).

Ive summarized dozens of books in my literary career; its become rather second nature.

In American religious history, theological qualms tend to get pushed aside when politics intervenes.

In politics, if you're explaining, you're loosing.

It takes two things to make a political lie work: a powerful person or institution willing to utter it, and another set of powerful institutions to amplify it.

Only liberals know how to make you freer on the job, which is where most of us suffer the gravest indignities in our lives.

I cant summarize my favorite movie, Jacques Tatis Play Time. You just have to see it.

No historical analogies are exactly precise.

When legitimately constituted state authority stands down in the face of armed threats, the very foundation of the republic is in danger.

College was at the heart of his sentimental imagination.

Stories are "how we organize the chaos of experience into the order we require just a carry-on." Joan Gideon

So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity.

In drama, the characters should determine the story. In melodrama, the story determines the characters.

In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten, then he who continues the attack wins.

Arbitrage proof has since been widely used throughout finance and economics.

It's been a hard time to celebrate, to come out with a smile. But I'm an American. Naomi asked me to come out to support other Americans, and here I am.

Woe to the Revolution when the day comes, when the people, overburdened by contributions and consumed by abuses, turn to their enemies for salvation!

It's a terrible shame if you're born the brightest guy in your class. If you're not, then you have to hustle-and that's good.

It's very important to be as transparent, as real as possible, as a person.

A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty.

All models are wrong; some models are useful.