When I came back to Washington to be The Times' chief congressional correspondent in 1991, I was looking for a book subject, and Ted Kennedy stood out for two reasons.

There's a Washington standard of casually putting things off the record. It's really gone too far. I don't know an easy way to turn it back.

Ted Kennedy's achievements as a senator have towered over his time, changing the lives of far more Americans than remember the name Mary Jo Kopechne.

I thought writing about somebody current would be a little closer to what I'm used to doing.

Gore speaks to America as if English is its second language; George W. speaks as if English is his second language.

A step from the past always demands a step in the mind backed by a robust action. The very place you fall is the very place you make the first move to move.

Fill your heart with kindness and forgiveness, there will be no stress, anger, or bitterness.

No person, relationship, or religion should complete you. They can enhance whatever is already there, but completion of the self comes from within, not from anything beyond that.

It is not only the most difficult thing to know oneself but the most inconvenient one too.

A tendancy to melancholy...let it be observed, is a misfortune, not a fault.

I don't even think of chimps as animals. I think of them as beings.

Amy sighed. Just when she started to almost like Ian again—after all, he'd flown across the ocean and had been working around the clock to help—his snob quotient went through the roof.

TLC should stand for Toddlers, Lunatics, and Cake.

Wise man also fears a weak enemy.

Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.