Washington, not Jefferson, freed his slaves upon his death.

I was too young for Korea and too old for Vietnam.

The number one secret of being a successful writer is this: marry an English major.

Winning the Revolutionary War, or the Civil War, or World War II were the turning points in our history, the sine qua non of our forward progress.

Crazy Horse saw history as integrated in the present, incorporated into daily life.

The Holocaust was the most evil crime ever committed.

Eisenhower had the clearest blue eyes. He would fix them on you. In my every interview with him, he would lock his eyes on to mine and keep them there.

Nothing is inevitable in life. People make choices, and those choices have results, and we all live with the results.

I was taught by professors who had done their schooling in the 1930s. Most of them were scornful of, even hated, big business.

It is through history that we learn who we are and how we got that way, why and how we changed, why the good sometimes prevailed and sometimes did not.

My favorite book is the last one printed, which is always better than those that were published earlier.

Made a decision. I will never let a sunny day happen without me again. Darkness is almost always guaranteed unless some strange thing happens. But the sun...?! Go get some.

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.

If guys try to make a bigger company for the sake of size, they don't create value in most cases.

I decline to accept Hebrew mythology as a guide to twentieth-century science.

Remembering and seeing are not the same, and that is why memories are of little use to us in forming loving relationships.

I never tried to be Jay Z or Big Poppa, I'm underground like them dead children buried in Gaza

Will and I are yin and yang. He's all sky, vast and bright and soaring, and I'm all earth. I'm here to ground him, and he's here to help me fly.

You have to put yourself to one side and get away from the 'Victorian poet' model where you are the universe. You have to do everything you can to take your ego out of the equation.

Young people in particular, I appeal to you: bear witness to your faith through the digital world.

The thing about art for me is that you can go on theorising your work forever, because it's open to interpretation.