If you think about it, the historian's task is like that of the detective.

What I thought we ought to try to do in a book like this is to focus closely on Lincoln, himself, to see what he knew, how he knew it, how he came to make the decisions that he did, and how he implemented them.

I love mysteries, and I read them every night before I go to bed.

But having said all of that, that still doesn't account for a lot of the increase in popularity which stems, I think, from Lincoln's personal characteristics.

The more I have studied Lincoln, the more I have followed his thought processes, the more I am convinced that he understood leadership better than any other American president.

Maybe I will write a memoir, perhaps I'll do some essays, or maybe I will write a mystery story.

At the beginning, Lincoln was so inexperienced he had reverence for military expertise, not realizing that there wasn't any military expertise, that the most anybody had commanded up to that point had been somebody, some troops in the Mexican War, and it had been years ago.

And, finally, Lincoln was not a good impromptu speaker; he was at his best when he could read from a carefully prepared manuscript. Though maybe a teleprompter could have helped that!

In Lincoln's day a President's religion was a very private affair. There were no public prayer meetings, no attempts to woo the Religious Right. Few of Lincoln's countrymen knew anything at all of his religious beliefs.

The big biography of Lincoln necessarily had to do so much with his political career, his ambitions, his accomplishments in public, with less time to spend on his private life, his inner life, and I thought this might be a way of getting at that.

I'm not sure Lincoln would fare well if he were a presidential candidate today.

If you think about it, the historian's task is like that of the detective.

I was able to sit at Lincoln's side and see how he thought and how he acted, and how he felt about what was going on around him. I felt the pressures that were on him. You can see what people were writing to him, how they were nudging him.

But I have tried to go over it very carefully, not merely what the evidence is, but with psychoanalysts and psychologists, and I think we're just about all agreed that Lincoln and Speed did not have a homosexual relationship.

I think, with the gay liberation movement has had need for heroes and heroines, and it would be rather nice to have Abraham Lincoln as your poster boy, wouldn't it?

Well, it seems to me Lincoln, I suppose, is kind of a model of a particular sort of presidency, a presidency that first of all is elected by a minority of the votes.

Lincoln had no such person that he could talk with. Often, as a result, he debated with himself, and he would draw up a kind of list of the pros and cons of an argument, and carefully figure them out, and he might test them in public.

Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone.

I really have the American dream licked.

When you lose your mother at 20 and then your father soon after, melancholia is part of your life.

I became a photographer in order to be a war photographer, and a photographer involved in what I thought were critical social issues. From the very beginning this was my goal.

As presidents from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama have recognized, the real question is whether regulations, whether new or old, are justified. That requires a careful analysis of their costs and their benefits.

All general judgments are loose and imperfect

When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.

I took all of my rejection letters - there must have been thousands of them in a huge box - and I went out on the curb and burned them all, crying.

I didn't like the '80s at all; it was a vulgar moment of fashion.

The only person who can, with impunity, make the movie he wants to make, has got to be Steven Spielberg.

I think the Shiites want a theocracy.

Iran is part of the problem, not the solution. And the Russian government is ignoring reality.

I've honestly never worked with Beyonce. It would be awesome, though; I would love that.

The origin of every excuse is the failure to do something.

I think it puts baseball back on the map as a sport. It's America's pastime and just look at everyone coming out to the ballpark. It has been an exciting year.

Touring, and being in a band, it's almost like the other stuff, the other parts of life, get put on hold.

I'm learning a lot about how to be one of the 'good' actors. You'd hope that it's natural to be a good person, and kind, but I'm learning how to deal with long, sometimes boring days.

An ordinary kitten will ask more questions than any five year old.

Sometimes it's more difficult to do very simple, low-key films.

Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves.

You really need to be on the edge and you have to keep your eyes open.

Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world.

I enjoy clothes. My mother tells me how, even as a kid, I used to choose my own clothes. I have a feel for it, and I do the costume coordination for my photo shoots as well. Many a time, even my characters wear the clothes I choose.

We believed the world didn't need another commoditized venture capital firm.