My neck is too arthritic to snap around. The big shift in my perspective that happened in the writing process, however, was the paramount importance of the "West" epitomized by Cincinnati.

The evolution was always to greater scale and speed. Other countries did that here and there - GB in textiles, Germany in steel - but we went in that direction almost across the board.

The Transcontinental Railroad Act is the first step in creating a continental common market.

We demonstrated what you could do when a band of entrepreneurs settles an empty country with vast resources. The Chinese have a billion people and are running out of water. Tougher problem for sure.

We were suddenly getting big, with burgeoning capabilities on all sides, but very clumsy, knew we were on some kind of ride, and things changing fast, but with very little idea of what was going on.

I think it was the occasion of the final psychological break with Great Britain, in a way that had clearly not happened to that date, especially in New England and to som degree in the South.

The War of 1812 perhaps the least remembered of American wars because it was fought in such a left-handed slapdash manner on both sides.

Credit is the air that financial markets breathe, and when the air is poisoned, there's no place to hide.

No specific technology. My guess is that it was the instinct always to go to maximum scale. Great Britain kept much more of a small shop mindset well into the twentieth century, for instance.

For just a few dollars registration, you got temporary possession of a good piece of land. Live on it for five years, build a house, and farm it, and it was yours. What a brilliant economic stimulus!

Music itself has taught me never to underestimate a mistake, for, in the midst of all, it’s often in that mistake where the realm of the unexpected creation is hidden.

I remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing 'Happy Birthday.'

The more sinful and guilty a person tends to feel, the less chance there is that he will be a happy, healthy, or law-abiding citizen. He will become a compulsive wrong-doer.

More and more I understand that it's very fine not to know where you come from.

A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.

Perhaps love is essential because it's unnecessary.

miracles occur in psychoanalysis as seldom as anywhere else.

When I was 6 my father went to fight in the war, so he was my big hero. I thought he was the greatest thing.

We all have bad days, but one thing is true; no cloud is so dark that the sun can't shine through.

Everything in our lives has the potential to wake us up or put us to sleep. Allowing it to awaken us is up to us.