People Tease Me About Knowing Somehow That

What I Think I've Learned Is That You're Never Going To Get It All Right, And You Can't Obsess About Having A Fact Wrong Or A Date Wrong Or Something Like That, As Long As You Tried As Best You Could. If You've Done The Kind Of Research That You're Sure Is Pretty Good, Then You Just Have To Have Confidence In It, So That Nothing Is Perfect In Life. I Think That Is What The Criticism Has Helped Me To Understand.

I Liked The Thought That The Book I Was Now Holding Had Been Held By Dozens Of Others.

Washington Was A Typical American. Napoleon Was A Typical Frenchman, But Lincoln Was A Humanitarian As Broad As The World. He Was Bigger Than His Country - Bigger Than All The Presidents Together. We Are Still Too Near To His Greatness,' (leo) Tolstoy (in 1908) Concluded, 'but After A Few Centuries More Our Posterity Will Find Him Considerably Bigger Than We Do. His Genius Is Still Too Strong And Powerful For The Common Understanding, Just As The Sun Is Too Hot When Its Light Beams Directly On Us.' (748)

Where's The Progress That We're Going To See In Afghanistan? You Have To Keep Public Support Both On The Economy And The War Or These Things Will Really Become Troubling.

When You Are An Historian, There's Probably Nothing That Matters More Than To Be Recognized By Your Colleagues In Your Own Profession. I Was Lucky Enough To Win The Pulitzer Prize For History. I Had To Give A Talk Right After That To Some Young People. The Most Important Thing To Tell Them, I Think, Is That You Can't Ever Know That It's Going To Turn Out That Way.