Richard Brookhiser

“Lincoln bore down or anything he handled, mastering both the details and the principles.”

“Lincoln was a master of small group theatrics.”

“Young, healthy communities can afford to roll the dice.”

“To use the past, he had to save it from aspects of itself.”

“The towering genius is not apolitical.”

“Depression can seem absurdly self aggrandizing to those who do not experience it, But that does not make it any less painful to those who do.”

“Lincoln told a family friend that his father taught him to work, but never learned him to love it.”

“A storyteller, a displaced poet, will absorb reading differently.”

“He might not take their advice, but he took their temperature.”

“Lincoln admitted his infirmities to make way for his spring.”

“One of the highest marks of citizenship is fighting for the common defense.”

“She became at once more intimate and more exalted.”

“God produced great writing, a matter of first importance to a man like Lincoln, ever impressed with the nature of cause and forces.”

“Lincoln Road that sorrow is most difficult for the young because it, "takes them unawares." The old, he said, have learned to anticipate difficulty. Lincoln wrote that sorrow is most difficult for the young because it, "takes them unawares." The old, he said, have learned to anticipate difficulty.”

“Literature offered a safe circumscribed outlet for sadness.”

“Any man's life can be seen as a series of engagements with his fathers, Including the surrogates provided by life and literature.”