“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.

There is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life’s point of no return.

The ball was literally glued to the back of his foot – into the back of the net.

The myths have always condemned those who ‘looked back.’ Condemned them, whatever the paradise may have been which they were leaving. Hence this shadow over each departure from your decision.

It’s Satan’s delight to tell me that once he’s got me, he will keep me. But at that moment I can go back to God.

And were your back as broad as heaven, and your purse full of gold, and did your compassion reach from here to hell itself, there is nothing you can do.

For while the movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable. While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.

I’m always afraid someone’s going to tap me on the shoulder one day and say, ‘Back to North London’.

Once that gets started, he gets backed by so much cash and so much power that he becomes a monstrous invader from outer space.