Most Americans didn't distinguish fame from accomplishment. 
John Kerry only went to prep schools because he had an aunt who had the money to pay for his way into those prep schools. 
Theodore Roosevelt had been enthralled with the idea of Texas since 1883, when he arrived in the Dakota Territory to ranch cattle. 
It is a long revisionist road up from the bottom for George W. Bush. He is ranked toward the bottom rung of presidents. 
I was stunned to find out there had never been a serious, scholarly biography ever written on Rosa Parks. 
I learned more about history and literature in the used bookstores in DC than in college libraries. 
History chalks up Mr. McKinley's War as a U.S. win, and he also polls favorably as a 'near great' president. 
There is no real way to categorize McLean's 'American Pie' for its hybrid of modern poetry and folk ballad, beer-hall chant and high-art rock. 
As a composer, Dylan now fits comfortably alongside George Gershwin or Irving Berlin, though he grumpily refuses to wear any man's collar. 
I feel like I'm always learning from people. 
Cronkite was always one step short of disillusionment. 
Unlike most fine writers, he wasn't in love with his own words. 
He followed an ironclad rule. He NEVER WATCHED HIMSELF. 
John McPhee's 1989 book The Control of Nature, for 
Over the past four decades no reporter has critiqued the American South with such evocative sensitivity and bedrock honesty as Curtis Wilkie. 
I have a lot of books I want to write. 
If life were fattening, Walter Cronkite would weigh 500 pounds. 
Richard Kerry not only was a pilot in World War II, but was a civil servant. He did not come from money. 
Reagan was a pure liberation, free-and-fair election American. 
Now I'm the father of three children; I'm not able to go live on a bus and do semesters around the country like I did when I was young. 
One of the things I learned in editing 'The Reagan Diaries' is to never say what Reagan would do, because he surprised people. 
When he (Walter Cronkite) drank, he had an appetite for both history and political bullshit. 
Politicians wanted to mine the Grand Canyon for zinc and copper, and Theodore Roosevelt said, 'No.' 
Knievel seemed braver and more brazen - and more unhinged - than any other athlete-cum-thrill-seeker of his era. 
New Orleans is just a microcosm of Newark and Detroit and hundreds of other troubled urban locales. 
John Kerry can be absolutely ruthless. I would not want to be on his enemies list when he's ready to go after you. 
Cronkite is not a genius at anything except being straight, honest, and normal. 
The myth-making about Appomattox started from the moment Lee left the courthouse on his horse to travel to Richmond. 
The answer to New Orleans's levee woes is painfully obvious: money and willpower. 
survival of the fittest" - which was first coined by the economist Herbert Spencer 