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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

The separation of truth from reason is a dangerous game. I think ideas have to sink very deeply into a person's soul, into their being, before they can effect change.

We need to be aware of what we are capable of first and realize that if you place your dreams really really high, you do have the potential to get to that level.

Good friends don't have to visit each other every day.

The best evidence of the Bible's being the word of God is to be found between its covers. It proves itself.

[Donald] Trump's pension for distractions is starting to frustrate members of his own party.

I may have invented Control-Alt-Delete, but Bill Gates made it famous.

Show business is my life. When I was a kid I sold insurance, but nobody laughed.

A big mirror to exercise in front of is essential.

Fish don't know much about water, and people didn't know much about air.

I grew up only singing country. I did listen to like Debbie Gibson and other pop music, but I would only sing country music.