“There’s a Washington standard of casually putting things off the record. It’s really gone too far. I don’t know an easy way to turn it back.”

I thought writing about somebody current would be a little closer to what I’m used to doing.

When I came back to Washington to be The Times’ chief congressional correspondent in 1991, I was looking for a book subject, and Ted Kennedy stood out for two reasons.

Ted Kennedy’s achievements as a senator have towered over his time, changing the lives of far more Americans than remember the name Mary Jo Kopechne.

Gore speaks to America as if English is its second language; George W. speaks as if English is his second language.

Another thing that’s quite different in writing a book as a practicing newspaperman is that if you look at what you’ve written the next morning and you think you didn’t get it quite right, you can fix it.

I admire the ones who keep coming back and doing it, time after time.

My skin prickled and I looked back at the ocean. None of us ask for the things we inherit; they are thrust upon us, willy-nilly. Like The Marine.

It seems the best work I do is when I am really allowing the unconscious to rule the page and then later I can go back and hack around and make sense of things.

Better take the keys and drive forever. Staying won’t put these futures back together.

The moth don’t care when he sees the flame He might get burned, but he’s in the game And once he’s in, he can’t go back He’ll beat his wings till he burns them black.

I have to get back to the hotel. But I don’t know the way. I always rely on Shouji so I didn’t notice where we were going.

The Taliban had become deeply unpopular and were actually discarded by the Pashtun population almost as quickly as they were in the north. I don’t see the Taliban coming back in any way.

I came back [to Beijing ] because that’s the only time I had an excuse to come back, or otherwise I would never have a reason to come back.