To write is to think, and to write well is to think well.

Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.

To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is.

Climb the mountain so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.

Never assume that people in positions of responsibility are behaving responsibly.

Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.

And read… read all the time… read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life.

History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.

Books can change your life. Some of the most influential people in our lives are characters we meet in books.

My wife, the star I steer by.

Courage is contagious. If a leader shows courage, others get the idea.

The soul’s steps are greater than the heart’s leaps.

There are some wonderful aspects to Christmas. It's magical. And each year, from at least November, well, September, well, if I'm honest, May, I look forward to it hugely.

I remember being in strong physics, physiology and biology classes.

I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger: A man on the move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.

Neither said anything while they embraced. Sometimes words didn't go far enough, the vessels of letters and the ladles of grammar incapable of holding the heart's sentiments.

The best pleasures of this world are not quite true.

This was freedom; to feel what the heart desired with no thought to the opinion of the rest... She was free, for love liberates.

I have two ambitions in life: one is to drink every pub dry, the other is to sleep with every woman on earth.

No man can help another without helping himself.

The faith to step out is worthless without the faithfulness to stick it out.