“[While writing history], I've kept the most interesting company imaginable with people long gone. Some I've come to know better than many I know in real life, since in real life we don't get to read other people's mail.”

“Remove yourself, sir!”

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

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

“History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages. It's accelerative. The more we know, the more we want to know.”

“Rather than literally burning the midnight oil, which he judged to be unhealthy, John Adams advised his son to make the most of college by developing an inquisitive outlook that would prompt him to get to know the most exceptional scholars and question them closely. "Ask them about their tutors, manner of teaching. Observe what books lie on their tables. Fall into questions of literature, science, or what you will.”

“Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so ”

“All the money anyone needs is just enough to prevent one from being a burden to others. -Bishop Milton Wright”