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

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.

Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that today is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity.

I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.

If I had to come up with something that just came to me, I think growing up in a small town, I want knowledge. I still think today, knowledge is one of the keys.

There's more than a few remnants left in German welfare policy today. Many Germans eagerly condemn Hitler's fascism but won't examine the other reasons why the Third Reich succeeded for a season.

Compared to today's salaries, our cut was minuscule but it was very good for the time.

The NFL today has bigger, stronger, bodies than ever, moving faster than ever, hitting a stationary object harder than ever before - so the physics of the hit have changed.

The President of today is just the postage stamp of tomorrow.

I'm so happy because today I found my friends - they're in my head.

I don't know where the stock market is going, but I will say this, that if it continues higher, this will do more to stimulate the economy than anything we've been talking about today or anything anybody else was talking about.

I'm not up on today's television for children, because it's mostly cartoons that don't seem to interest me.

We aim in the domain of politics at republicanism; in the domain of economics at socialism; in the domain of what is today called religion, at atheism.

Today's interpretations of religion are often backward and contradict the needs of civilization.

The most profound, tangible influence in my life has been my wife, Monique. I don't know that I would even be alive were it not for her, and I certainly would not be the person that I am today.

Were you to read the British press today, you would learn that the British Empire never forgets its defeats.

As patients and consumers, we are better informed today about our health care than any previous generation.

A couple of guys won Academy Awards for the things that I turned down. Today, after coming to terms with everything, after being in therapy for a long time-there are areas where I will compromise.

I know the history of the record business so well because I followed Billie Holiday into the record studios. It was so primitive compared to the sophisticated business today.

Especially today as we fight the war on terror - against an enemy that represents hatred, extremism and stands behind no flag - we need to remember the sacrifices that have gone into protecting our flag.

The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth.

The Lord gave us Ten Commandments, but the bill before the House today gives us 39.

The growth of technology is such that it is not possible today for a nuclear physicist to switch into medical physics without training. The field is now much more technical. More training is needed to do the job.

One needs a Seer's Vision and an Angel's voice to be of any avail. I do not know of any Indian man or woman today who has those gifts in their most complete measure.

Well, I go to the theater today, and its curtain - there is no curtain in this play; the lights go down and go up - and we start. And I live this character for two hours. There are only two of us in the play. And It's a complete experience.

We are demonstrating for services for all the people and not just services for money. It's very important that this message goes to the European Parliament today.

The Clinton White House today said they would start to give national security and intelligence briefings to George Bush. I don't know how well this is working out. Today after the first one Bush said, 'I've got one question: What color is the red phone?'

People with fertility problems are not alone. It is a very very common problem for couples today. I've seen statistics that are just staggering.

Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.

There are seven winners of the Monaco Grand Prix on the starting line today, and four of them are Michael Schumacher.

It would be really hard to get serious about anything political today unless it was a joke.

In thinking about nanotechnology today, what's most important is understanding where it leads, what nanotechnology will look like after we reach the assembler breakthrough.

Today, they're just up there for the money, just packaged and be gone.

We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.