“That doesn’t mean that your curiosity is ever totally satisfied.”

Ultimately a historian has to put together a cohesive work.

There is always more to tell.

It is important for us to remember that black people have been patriotic and have fought for that American dream in every American war.

Women have more often worked within the home, working equally as hard

If you want to have a finished product, at some point you have to say “enough.”

I would argue, but not always out there where they’re counted, not always up there in the labor unions, certainly not in leadership positions.

When we look at women, we have to look at the significance of their work in a different way from the way we look at it with men.

What first intrigued me was this desire to understand my family and put it in the context of American history.

I have to throw in on a personal note that I didn’t like history when I was in high school.

To believe that women’s contributions have been less important than men’s contributions because women are usually less public people.

For all kinds of reasons, it is more difficult to track women’s lives. Women’s words have simply been considered less important, so they have been preserved less often.

I didn’t study history when I was in college, none at all, and only started to do graduate study when my children were going to graduate school.

You have to decide what is extraneous and what is central.

And how those stories relate to the larger picture of American history.

I think that one of the ways that Americans will come to want to look at history is by looking at their own families’ histories

It is more difficult to research women’s lives than it is men’s.

Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy

Women have more often worked within the home, working equally as hard

So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains.

If you wish to be good “Pantagruelists” (which is to say, live in peace, joy, health, and always dining well), never put too much faith in people who look out through a hole.

Endings are a part of life, and we are actually wired to execute them. But because of trauma, developmental failures, and other reasons, we shy away from the steps that could open up whole new worlds of development and growth.

You really have to act your pants off to stay alive.

Those nights lying alone are not discontinuous with this cold hectic dawn. It is who I am.

He who dies for virtue does not perish.