“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.”

“You see, in this country are a number of youths who do not like to work, and the college is an excellent place for them.”

“Sometimes the gap between what you are and what you want to be is a little piece of paper called your college degree. So jump.”

“I only want to write. And there's no college for that except life.”

“It was four o'clock of a stickily wet Saturday. As long as it is anything from Monday to Friday the average library attendant goes around thanking her stars she isn't a school-teacher; but the last...”

“The world is quiet here.”

“I've always said, stuff the engagement ring! Just build me a really big library.”

“All I wanted was to be a university teacher.”