Robert Caro

“The meta lesson is, if you are not willing to pay that price, you should presume that someone else will. If you want something like the presidency, and then my note here is ours, or being a billionaire, if you want something like the presidency, you should pre…”

“Just remember, he said, turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamn page.”

“A lot of people wrote biographies of Lyndon Johnson before. None of them moved to the hill country like he did, and as a result, this is what living there, spending more time there, taking time to get to know the people, Allowed Caro to understand Johnson and …”

“One trait I actually think Robert Caro shares with Lyndon Johnson and Robert Moses is the ruthlessness that all three of them have and all three of them use to get what they actually want.”

“To be right in your count when you have to be right is a very rare ability. Most people tend to be much more optimistic in their counts than the situation deserves. True believers were always inclined to attribute more votes to their side than actually existed…”

“And so just like Caro had to turn every page, Lyndon had to count every vote. It is just the way they work, and it is an innate part of their being, and it stems from the relationship with their father. The perpetual need to escape, to run from a great source …”

“Biography should not just be a collection of facts. It's of real importance to enable the reader to see in his mind the places in which the book's facts are located. If a reader can visualize them for himself, then he may be able to understand things without t…”

“If his books take seven, eight, 10 years, it's highly likely that that memoir never comes.”