“Grant was something rare in that or any war. He could learn from experience.”

“A visitor asked Lincoln what good news he could take home from an audience with the august executive. The president spun a story about a machine that baffled a chess champion by beating him thrice....”

“Right now I'm thinking a good deal about emancipation. One of our sins was slavery, another was emancipation. It's a paradox. In theory, emancipation was one of the glories of our democracy - and i...”

“I think making mistakes and discovering them for yourself is of great value, but to have someone else to point out your mistakes is a shortcut of the process.”

“He is the kind of person I should expect to rescue one from a mad dog at any risk but then insist on a stoical indifference to the fright afterward." Jefferson Davis's future wife describing him at...”

“On Lee as commander: "He had a cheerful dignity and could praise them (his men) without seeming to court their favor.”

“To write is to stand at the edge of a bottomless well, unafraid of falling in.”

“But when I say it isn't meant for anyone's eyes, I don't mean it in the sense of one of those novel manuscripts people keep in a drawer, insisting they don't care if anyone else ever reads it or no...”

“So here I am writing my zombie story and my lead character decides to betray me.”