A biography for Ron Chernowhasn’t been written yet.
“I have developed a very strong partiality for the dead: they don't talk back, they don't sue, and they don't have angry relatives.”
“I felt blessed by the existence of Horace Porter's 'Campaigning With Grant.'”
“I'm dubious about having Social Security put into the stock market. I think that we have gotten very far away from the idea that there's something sacrosanct about retirement investments.”
“Hamilton had one of those extraordinary 18th-century minds that touched on virtually every major topic of the day.”
“There were 900 books on Washington when I began writing on him.”
“Writing about dead white males seems to be out of favor among academics.”
“I never imagined that Hamilton would be turned into a musical, much less a hip-hop musical. I think I can safely say that that's the last thing I would have expected.”
“Hamilton was extremely combative. Not only was he combative, but he also overreacted to anything he perceived as a threat or a criticism.”
“The history of Wall Street is inseparable from New York.”
“There is no country in the world where it's as easy to find venture capital in the stock market as the United States.”
“By the late 1980s people realized that houses did not always appreciate and that they could fluctuate like any other market commodity.”
“I'm a biographer; I can live with a little hyperbole.”
“Mutual funds have historically offered safety and diversification. And they spare you the responsibility of picking individual stocks.”
“Strange as it may seem, George Washington's life has now been so minutely documented that we know far more about him than did his own friends, family, and contemporaries.”
“The American public historically was really not part of the stock market.”
“Every time I wrote fiction, I was discouraged, and every time I wrote nonfiction, I was encouraged.”
“The best argument for mutual funds is that they offer safety and diversification. But they don't necessarily offer safety and diversification.”
“Mutual fund managers are trapped in this rather deadly vicious circle: the more successful they are, the more money flows into their mutual fund. Then, it is more difficult for them to beat the market averages or even to match their own past performance.”
“Because of the love affair between the American public and the stock market, it is possible for entrepreneurs, technological visionaries and inventors of every sort to get financing.”
“I can bear to hear of imputed or real errors. The man who wishes to stand well in the opinion of others must do this, because he is thereby enabled to correct his faults or remove the prejudices which are imbibed against him.”