The War of 1812 perhaps the least remembered of American wars because it was fought in such a left-handed slapdash manner on both sides.

The evolution was always to greater scale and speed. Other countries did that here and there - GB in textiles, Germany in steel - but we went in that direction almost across the board.

The Transcontinental Railroad Act is the first step in creating a continental common market.

My neck is too arthritic to snap around. The big shift in my perspective that happened in the writing process, however, was the paramount importance of the "West" epitomized by Cincinnati.

We demonstrated what you could do when a band of entrepreneurs settles an empty country with vast resources. The Chinese have a billion people and are running out of water. Tougher problem for sure.

We were suddenly getting big, with burgeoning capabilities on all sides, but very clumsy, knew we were on some kind of ride, and things changing fast, but with very little idea of what was going on.

I think it was the occasion of the final psychological break with Great Britain, in a way that had clearly not happened to that date, especially in New England and to som degree in the South.

Credit is the air that financial markets breathe, and when the air is poisoned, there's no place to hide.

No specific technology. My guess is that it was the instinct always to go to maximum scale. Great Britain kept much more of a small shop mindset well into the twentieth century, for instance.

For just a few dollars registration, you got temporary possession of a good piece of land. Live on it for five years, build a house, and farm it, and it was yours. What a brilliant economic stimulus!

It is a curiously moving experience, to hear 350 sailors uttering the words "Oh shit!" in eleven different languages.

Learning the Holocaust is not meant to scare you but to deepen your understanding about the world.

When the time comes for the fulfillment of the visions, all resources needed are made available by divine power.

And Beauty is a form of Genius - is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation.

Television is more of a business. You can't take as many risks, because there's so many channels now, and the advertising's dropping.

I like dressing up for dates and dissecting a dinner conversation with a new guy to determine if he might be The One.

I don’t mind getting smacked on the chin. I just don’t want to get nibbled to death. There’s a difference.

I have good voice inflection, that's why I'm good on radio. But on TV, I look too big because I move my hands around a lot.

If you behave like a regular guy, you get treated like a regular guy. You can't cut yourself off from the world. You ultimately would go crazy, wouldn't you?

Angels are happier than men and devils, because they are not always prying after good and evil in one another, and eating the tree of knowledge for Satan's gratification.