Ultimately a historian has to put together a cohesive work. That doesn't mean that your curiosity is ever totally satisfied.

It is important for us to remember that black people have been patriotic and have fought for that American dream in every American war.

You have to decide what is extraneous and what is central. There is always more to tell. If you want to have a finished product, at some point you have to say "enough."

For all kinds of reasons, it is more difficult to track women's lives. Women's words have simply been considered less important, so they have been preserved less often.

What life means has individual answers for each of us.

Writers are born, not created.

This one thing I do ... I press toward the mark.

What greater or better gift can we offer the republic than to teach and instruct our youth?

Don't let anyone define and decide for you fate.

Calculating how much carbon is absorbed by which forests and farms is a tricky task, especially when politicians do it.

Women love a sick child or a healthy animal; A man who is both itches them like an incubus.

I'm very focused when I'm making a movie, but I'm also a fantastic multitasker.

The Magi are filled with awe by what they see; heaven on earth and earth in heaven; man in God and God in man; they see enclosed in a tiny body the One whom the entire world cannot contain.

People aren't going to throw the kind of money at certain people that they used to.