The past is not simply the past, but a prism through which the subject filters his own changing self-image.

Good leadership requires you to surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree with you without fear of retaliation.

That is what leadership is all about: staking your ground ahead of where opinion is and convincing people, not simply following the popular opinion of the moment.

Once a president gets to the White House, the only audience that is left that really matters is history.

As a historian, what I trust is my ability to take a mass of information and tell a story shaped around it.

Go ahead, and fear not. You will have a full library at your service.

Better to have your enemies inside your tent pissing out, then to have them outside your tent pissing in.

I still think about that one Jamiroquai video a lot.

Excitement about things became a habit, a part of my personality, and the expectation that I should enjoy new experiences often engendered the enjoyment itself.

Whatever it is that you do, if you have that passion and desire for it, that's the most important thing.

Washington was a typical American. Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country - bigger than all the Presidents together.

Write about the dream you see during wakefulness.

Lying isn't something you should be proud of, but be grateful if you've gained a talent for doing it correctly.

I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I'm not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.

I want to be a fighter. So fight for something! Not for money.

People who give will never be poor.

I was going to move back to Dallas, and my goal was to work at Channel 8 and be a sportscaster and cover my Cowboys and live happily ever after.

For that was the terrible power of the dementors: to force their victims to relive the worst memories of their lives, and drown, powerless, in theirown despair. . . .

I remember when I was 11, I did some Kung-fu demonstrations in Hong Kong in 1974.

When you experience God it is deeply personal, but it's not at all private.

The Radiohead record, 'The Bends' is my all-time favorite record on the planet.