By the '40s, Sam Goldwyn is a very serious man. By the '50s, he's the dean of American producers. To the end, he was Hollywood's gray eminence.

There is always a certain leap of faith that editors have made with their nonfiction writers. If the trust is broken, things can get very embarrassing for the writers and the publisher.

The successful editor is one who is constantly finding newwriters, nurturing their talents, and publishing them with critical and financial success.

When most people think of Woodrow Wilson, they see a dour minister's son who never cracked a smile, where in fact he was a man of genuine joy and great sadness.

I think a biography is only as interesting as the lives and times it illuminates.

I don't know of a soul who packed more living into 72 years than Charles Lindbergh did.

I am a compulsive worker. But I'm also a compulsive relaxer.

Clark Gable seemed fascinating all his life because there wasn't so much information about him. Today, you're on television all the time.

I read my first book on Woodrow Wilson at age 15, and I was hooked.

I'm so blessed to have such enlightened parents. It must have been very hard to watch their able-bodied son lock himself up in his old room for most of his 20s.

I like my subjects to be American, and not too dead, so I can interview people who knew them.

When you gain maximum knowledge in any area of work and put it into practice, no powerwill be able to hinder you achieving your set goals.

If you shouldn’t blame yourself for minor things you did or didn’t do when someone dies, how can you start giving yourself credit for tiny things you did when something really good happens?

'Tis done. We have become a nation.

I'm as skeptical as anyone would be about celebrities and causes - and I will dare to say to you that I don't think of myself as a celebrity per se.

I divide my time between Columbia, Maryland, and Lagos, Nigeria.

Don't apologize for all the tears you've cried, you've been way too strong now for all your life.

It will help erase the idea that politics is a second-rate profession and a dirty business.

It's all about mechanics; all the weight-lifting in the world can't help you if you're not running correctly.

After seventy years of expository preaching, I have yet to touch the hem of His garment.

The modern airplane creates a new geographic dimension ... the world is small, the world is one.