"If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement."

"America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense…human rights invented America."

"Testing oneself is best when done alone."

"Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries."

"What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities, because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences, because it's not profitable, and now Newt, as the highest-paid historian in American history, may be an encouragement to people to study history."

"In the middle of the nineteenth century, the United States embarked on a new relationship with death, entering into a civil war that proved bloodier than any other conflict in American history, a war that would presage the slaughter of World War I's Western Front and the global carnage of the twentieth century."

"“I did this,” says my memory. “I cannot have done this,” says my pride, remaining inexorable. Eventually, my memory yields."

"The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds."