I had been writing for about twelve years. I knew pretty well how you could find things out, but I had never been trained in an academic way how to go about the research.

Every book is a new journey. I never felt I was an expert on a subject as I embarked on a project.

When I began, I thought that the way one should work was to do all the research and then write the book.

My shorthand answer is that I try to write the kind of book that I would like to read. If I can make it clear and interesting and compelling to me, then I hope maybe it will be for the reader.

I can fairly be called an amateur because I do what I do, in the original sense of the word - for love, because I love it. On the other hand, I think that those of us who make our living writing history can also be called true professionals.

I had been writing for about twelve years. I knew pretty well how you could find things out, but I had never been trained in an academic way how to go about the research.

I would pay to do what I do if I had to.

With the Truman book, I wrote the entire account of his experiences in World War I before going over to Europe to follow his tracks in the war. When I got there, there was a certain satisfaction in finding I had it right - it does look like that.

I'm very aware how many distractions the reader has in life today, how many good reasons there are to put the book down.

I love Dickens. I love the way he sets a scene.

When I read that the British army had landed thirty-two thousand troops - and I had realized, not very long before, that Philadelphia only had thirty thousand people in it - it practically lifted me out of my chair.

May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.

To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is.

You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history.

I just thank my father and mother, my lucky stars, that I had the advantage of an education in the humanities.

I love all sides of the work but that doesn't mean it isn't hard.

I work very hard on the writing, writing and rewriting and trying to weed out the lumber.

In time I began to understand that it's when you start writing that you really find out what you don't know and need to know.

People are so helpful. People will stop what they're doing to show you something, to walk with you through a section of the town, or explain how a suspension bridge really works.

To go back and read Swift and Defoe and Samuel Johnson and Smollett and Pope - all those people we had to read in college English courses - to read them now is to have one of the infinite pleasures in life.

No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read.

First of all, you can make the argument that there's no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past.

The title always comes last. What I really work hard on is the beginning. Where do you begin? In what tone do you begin? I almost have to have a scene in my mind.

I'm drawn particularly to stories that evolve out of the character of the protagonist.

The pull, the attraction of history, is in our human nature. What makes us tick? Why do we do what we do? How much is luck the deciding factor?

There's an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing.

My next book is also set in the eighteenth century. It's about the Revolution, with the focus on the year 1776. It's about Washington and the army and the war. It's the nadir, the low point of the United States of America.

People are so helpful. People will stop what theyre doing to show you something to walk with you through a section of the town or explain how a suspension bridge really works.

Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.

If everyone is special, then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless.

The work which is manipulated looks a little boring to me. I think life is pretty strange anyway. It is wooo, wooo, wooo!

So the guy that we're really targeting our system at this year is one of the guys who brought a 16bit system three or four years ago and has pretty much had it with that, and he's ready to buy something new.

Grissom is pretty asexual. He's not that interested in anything other than work - except for Lady Heather. She's the closest to getting his heart of anyone.

The student body was huge at UT and you had to mature pretty quick, very quick actually. I enjoyed it and it helped me a lot in my life in general - not only in the classroom but on the baseball field as well.

It was pretty extensive - we worked out 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 3 months, which I think is more than anybody in the Olympics. I thought well I don't need this, the girls need it, but it was a gift.

Will Arnett is one of the funniest guys I know. He has seen it all and done it all and come out the other end pretty savvy and pretty strong.

I was pretty taken with Patti Smith, she was my heroine.

A lot of people have gotten into comedy because of certain influences in their lives or events that were painful, and I really have wracked my brain to figure it out. I pretty much have had a normal childhood. Maybe it was too normal.

When George Bush asked me to sign on, it obviously wasn't because he was worried about carrying Wyoming. We got 70 percent of the vote in Wyoming, although those three electoral votes turned out to be pretty important last time around.

In the past I've made movies that were pretty universally liked. You can't really hate them. You can discard them, but you can't really hate them.

It's pretty simple, pretty obvious: that people's first impressions of people are really a big mistake.

I felt pretty comfortable with Westerns, apart from the fact I couldn't ride.

Being the first woman speaker and breaking the marble ceiling is pretty important. Now it's time to move on.

Well, the years from 10 to 20, when your body, mind and everything is like changing every five minutes, can be pretty torturing. And most of the interesting characters, I think, are somewhat tortured or torturous. I'm 20 now, so I'm only just an adult.

You just keep feeding hogwash to people, and pretty soon they'll eat it.

Ethically, I think pretty much every code of ethics for doctors suggests that they should not be in an interrogation room, particularly if there's anything coercive or abusive going on.

I think to just single out a highlight of Elvis's career is pretty much impossible. As far as being a fan of his, a lifetime fan, there were just too many highlights.

I don't think you need a record deal to write songs. You don't need any other reason than you want to do it. It's a far cry from why some people do music today. They make it to order, which is pretty horrible.

I used to be pretty reckless. When I was a runner for a production company, I drove a massive 16 seater van. I was only 18. I mean I look young now, but then I looked about 12.