There's a feeling about it. You feel almost like a cabinetmaker, laying planks. There's a real feeling when you know you're getting it right. It's a physical feeling.

At the ballet, you really feel like you're in the presence of something outside the rest of your life. Higher than the rest of your life.

I never wanted to do biography just to tell the life of a famous man. I always wanted to use the life of a man to examine political power, because democracy shapes our lives

The Senate is an unknowing world

Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.

Robert Moses wasn't elected to anything. We're taught that in a democracy power comes from being elected. He had more power than anyone, and he held it for 48 years

The moment the curtain rose on that first ballet, I knew something wonderful and new had come into my life. I can still see the first scene. The ballet was Divertimento No. 15

The New York City Ballet is obviously speaking to a whole new generation and bringing it the same wonder and beauty that it brought previous generations

Ballet is sort of a mystery to me. And I don't want to unravel that mystery.

I deliberately made an effort not to become an expert on the ballet.

I don't think of my books as being biographies. I never had any interest in doing a book just to write the life of a great man. I had zero interest in that. My interest is in power. How power works.

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.

I love you as I do all - not at all.

Flourishing is not a solo endeavor.

The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it's about us, it's about the reader.

You never worry about the last laugh if you've been laughing the whole time

Without balance and wisdom, power becomes very destructive. It creates unhappiness and not happiness. To simply see a teacher to gain power is a mistake.

That's the worst thing about money - the moment you have some you begin to suspect everyone of trying to take it away from you. And usually they are.

At the end of the day, the only things that are shovel ready around here are the words coming out of Barack Obama and Joe Biden's mouth.

It's easy to live the expected and conventional. It's when you live the unexpected that you start having fun with your life.