“Stories are "how we organize the chaos of experience into the order we require just a carry-on." Joan Gideon”

“Presidents are also always storytellers, purveyors of useful national mythologies.”

“Politics is motion." John Sears”

“College was at the heart of his sentimental imagination.”

“What does sincerity mean if it is chosen as deliberate strategy?”

“Governing is not a hero's profession. It is a profession of compromises.”

“I built an idea in my head of the hero I wanted to be, a grab bag of traits from heroes, villains, and side characters. I did not have book role models, I had book blueprints.But there remained a h...”

“I am not always good and noble. I am the hero of this story, but I have my off moments.”

“Ethan: "You think I'm a hero?"Beth: "Yes."Ethan: "But lousy husband material?" Like that really mattered to him.Beth: "Don't sweat it. So was Superman.”

“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”

“Go outside. Dont tell anyone and dont bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking until you no longer know the road like the palm of your hand, because we walk the same roads day in and day ou...”

“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.”

“In a universe where all life is in movement, where ever fact seen in perspective is totally engaging, we impose stillness on lively young bodies, distort reality to dullness, make action drudgery. ...”

“If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter. ”

“When you're a kid all you know is that your dad puts on his suit or overalls and vanishes from your life until nightfall. Sometimes my pops came back exhausted and scarlet-eyed, as if he'd been eng...”