Author

You can use a biography to examine political power, but only if you pick the right guy.

We're taught Lord Acton's axiom: all power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believed that when I started these books, but I don't believe it's always true any more. Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.

From Robert Caro

Lyndon Johnson, as majority leader of the United States Senate, he made the Senate work.

From Robert Caro

Long Island is shaped the way it is largely because of Robert Moses. Long Island is a perfect example of how political power shapes people's lives every day.

From Robert Caro

At the ballet, you really feel like you're in the presence of something outside the rest of your life. Higher than the rest of your life.

From Robert Caro

You come in off the street, through the doors of the theater. You sit down. The lights go down and the curtain goes up. And you're in another world.

From Robert Caro

Ballet is sort of a mystery to me. And I don't want to unravel that mystery.

From Robert Caro

There used to be this feeling under Eisenhower and Kennedy and Roosevelt and Truman that government was a solution. Trust in the presidency fell precipitously under Johnson - real lows. And it's never come back. It's a trend that, if you're liberal, is really discouraging.

From Robert Caro

I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term.

From Robert Caro

Everyone believed the Senate could not really be led. It used to take so long to rise up through seniority. In two years Lyndon Johnson is assistant leader of his party. In four years he is the leader of his party.

From Robert Caro

Robert Caro

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