What we saw in Richard Nixon's face was the panic in his soul. – Richard Goodwin

While JFK had made the sale on a political level, he had not yet completed it on an emotional one.

Organizing a coup was not the same as wanting one.

John F. Kennedy responded, as he often did when at his best, skillfully mixing dollops of wit with, self-deprecation, and the principle of not-really-going-near-the-question.

Nixon was by nature a excluder. Halderman like to exclude people. When Nixon's need met Halderman's abilities, you had the most perfect formula for disaster. – Jim Shepley

Richard Nixon coveted, to the point of obsession, a controversy-free, stage-managed coronation.

Nixon wanted view and advice brought to him through intermediaries. He wanted information filtered as it came to him – and he wanted his filters to filter his will back to those whom he must direct.

Eisenhower on LBJ: "He hadn't got the depth of mind nor the breath vision to carry great responsibility.

Henry Cabot Lodge was like medicine, good for you, but hard to take. – Teddy White

The author's alliterative description of politics since the 1960 presidential debates: "Government by Gotcha".

Jack Kennedy protected a mature and presidential image – tough, yet not unduly combative.

I live with a passionate passion.

Civilization is always threatened from below, by patterns of belief and emotion that may once have been useful to our ancestors, but that are useful no longer.

We don’t just believe that God is real, but in tough circumstances we believe that he knows the way out

We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs.

If nothing else, the act of reaching a milestone often serves to reveal a superstar's true nature.

at the end of the game the team with the most points on the board is going to win.

Radical changes of identity, happening suddenly and in very brief intervals of time, have proved more deadly and destructive of human values than wars fought with hardware weapons.

Once you start making money you have to put things into perspective.

Drowning in the sea of love Where everyone would love to drown.

The closure of the book is an illusion largely created by its materiality, its cover. Once the book is considered on the plane of its significance, it threatens infinity.