I sometimes feel that if your book sells more than 20 years, then there's something in it that you can say, gee, I did something that endures, that's timeless.

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

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.

My predictions are notably inaccurate.

I was trying to learn about Lyndon Johnson when he was young and creating his first political machine in the Texas hill country. I moved there for three years. You had to learn that world.

The Senate is an unknowing world.

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.

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.

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.

Everyone believed the Senate could not really be led. It used to take so long to rise up through seniority.

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.

Sometimes during a ballet I'll look around and see all these rows of intent faces, concentrating on this beautiful thing up on the stage.

I never went to a ballet until I was 45 years old. I don't know why.

You come in off the street, through the doors of the theater. You sit down. The lights go down and the curtain goes up. And you're in another world.

Lyndon Johnson, as majority leader of the United States Senate, he made the Senate work.

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

As you get older, you sometimes feel that it's harder and harder to get something new and wonderful to come into your life.

I really wanted there to be something in my life that I enjoy just for the beauty of it.

I sometimes feel that if your book sells more than 20 years, then there's something in it that you can say, gee, I did something that endures, that's timeless.

The ballet embodies the notes of music. And sometimes you almost feel like you can see the notes dance up there on the stage.

Everything seems to be going faster and faster. It's really harder to create something that endures. The New York City Ballet has succeeded in doing that.

I like new ballets because they're totally new. As you get older, new experiences are harder and harder to come by, so it's pretty great to have a new experience.

Everyone believed the Senate could not really be led. It used to take so long to rise up through seniority. In two years Lyndon Johnson is assistant leader of his party. In four years he is the leader of his party.

I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term.

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.

Long Island is shaped the way it is largely because of Robert Moses. Long Island is a perfect example of how political power shapes people's lives every day.

The right of a minority is so important in a democracy.

There used to be this feeling under Eisenhower and Kennedy and Roosevelt and Truman that government was a solution. Trust in the presidency fell precipitously under Johnson - real lows. And it's never come back. It's a trend that, if you're liberal, is really discouraging.

We're taught Lord Acton's axiom: all power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believed that when I started these books, but I don't believe it's always true any more. Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.

You can use a biography to examine political power, but only if you pick the right guy.

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

You can use a biography to examine political power but only if you pick the right guy.

Someday a political genius will come along and make the Senate work.

I was surprised that the TV series was popular itself, but after that it went on to become more popular over the years and thus it seemed eventually that they would turn it into a movie.

I prefer to remember the happy things over 10 years, the things that went well. Let me see, what did go well?

What I try to do for my readers is to pass on some of the things that I found out about being thirteen after doing it for forty years.

I think I've become a much better singer and a much better player. Years and years of playing a couple of hours every day will do that.

There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse.

The robe of flesh wears thin, and with the years God shines through all things.

The Republicans claim they are for strengthening Pell grants when the truth is that over the last four years, their legislation has done the exact opposite.

I want to thank all the fans for their support over the years. Keep supporting the Knicks, we're moving in the right direction here and we will be exciting to watch and competing against the best in the NBA. Come back to the Garden for those exciting games.

I am told that there have been over the years a number of experiments taking place in places like Massachusetts Institute of Technology that have been entirely based on concepts raised by Star Trek.

I couldn't sleep for two years, they tried to break my nerves. They used a lot of psychology to brainwash.

What the war did was give me the opportunity of three years of continuous reading, and it was in the course of reading that I became convinced that I should become an economist.

You look at the whole Human Rights questions, I happened to be there at just the right time when the country was awakening - this goes to the first question you asked - the whole country was awakening to a hundred years of injustice that hadn't been resolved yet.

We started filming in 1993 which was only four years after the fall of communism. The difference in Budapest over the last five years has been remarkable.

I had a wonderful time with the Stones but after 31 years, I thought it was time to move on.

The average life spans of many bands are not that long, up to five years if they are lucky.

For years the Trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We practically starved to death.