Vietnam was a palpable failure. And of course, in retrospect, it was even more clearly a disaster and a failure than maybe people understood at the time.

The consequence of the Bay of Pigs failure wasn't an acceptance of Castro and his control of Cuba but, rather, a renewed determination to bring him down by stealth.

In counterfactual history, nothing is certain.

... what's in a person's heart and soul will not likely be changed by the ability to command a helicopter to land on the South Lawn.

Like Lyndon Johnson, President Obama understands that timidity in a time of troubles is a prescription for failure.

What makes war interesting for Americans is that we don't fight war on our soil, we don't have direct experience of it, so there's an openness about the meanings we give it.

Presidents by six years have been there long enough for the media and the country to see their flaws.

It is very difficult for [people] to accept the idea that someone as inconsequential as Oswald could have killed someone as consequential as Kennedy.

The art of diplomacy is finding a reasonable route among imperfect alternatives.

JFK to RFK: To survive in politics, you sometimes have to be willing to make fun of yourself.

Public scandals are America's favorite parlor sport. Learning about the flaws and misdeeds of the rich and famous seems to satisfy our egalitarian yearnings.

The ego is the seeker but does not want the Truth.

As an actor, if you're just sitting and staring and you don't know who you are in your own mind, it's vacant. And sometimes the camera is an X-ray machine, it can pick it up.

We're used to comeback stories in the world of sports, but the Gail Devers story is remarkable. This is a comeback from an illness which almost killed her.

To every man who struggles with his own soul in mystery, a book that is a book flowers once, and seeds, and is gone.

I have this theory, bands with enigmatic lyrics attract crazies.

The great thing about change, is that it absolutely, positively, always means things are going to get even better. Even when you don't know how.

It goes without saying that all of the people, living, dead, and otherwise, in this story are fictional or used in a fictional context. Only the gods are real.

This fanaticism is what feeds terrorism. And this is precisely why Muslims must play an active role in opposing hate sermons and incitement to terrorism and extremism in their mosques.

It’s the freedom of the children of God. Such people can connect with everybody. They don’t feel the need to eliminate anybody.

An increase of tenderness always ended by boiling over and turning to indignation. He was at the point where we seek to adopt a course, and to accept what tears us apart.