Presidential biography is, by its nature, out of scale; no character is bigger, no action greater, than the person and the doings of the American president.

In the trunk of her car, my mother used to keep a collapsible easel, a clutch of brushes, a little wooden case stocked with tubes of paint, and, tucked into the spare-tire well, one of my father's old, tobacco-stained shirts, for a smock.

A problem with a president who leads by stirring the moral sentiments of voters is that he has got to keep stirring them.

Jill Lepore Quotes