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1 " Always do what you're afraid to do"-Robert F. Kennedy "
― Evan Thomas , Robert Kennedy: His Life
2 " ...insults were exchanged, but never conversation" (p.17). "
― Evan Thomas , The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898
3 " Roosevelt and Lodge operated by a fairly straightforward and sensible credo: reform without power is meaningless, and power without scruple is corrupt. "
4 " O’CONNOR WAS THE most powerful Supreme Court justice of her time. For most of her twenty-four-plus years on the Court, from October 1981 to January 2006, she was the controlling vote on many of the great societal issues, including abortion, affirmative action, and religious freedom, so much so that the press came to call it the O’Connor Court. "
― Evan Thomas , First: Sandra Day O'Connor
5 " In part because Americans were fearful of enemies within, they went looking for enemies abroad. War and conquest have served to distract nations from their internal contradictions and conflict for as long as nations have existed. "
6 " according to Lodge, were guilty of far worse. The war lovers had exaggerated Spanish cruelty in order to get their war, and now they covered up the abuses of American troops. "
7 " It is remarkable how little concern men seem to have for logic, statistics, and even, indeed, survival: we live by emotion, prejudice, and pride.”24 "
― Evan Thomas , Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World
8 " Miltiades was a Greek general who, flush with victory against the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC, led a punitive mission against an ally of Persia, a small island nation that was supposed to be a pushover. The mission was a fiasco and Miltiades was defeated and disgraced; he died of his wounds in prison. "
9 " slave camp?”21 He was far from alone in "
10 " one of the most important things to me is that my children and grandchildren are curious. Because, if you’re not curious, you’re not smart. "
11 " wandering off to bars. “I "
12 " The Soviets, in an unprecedented gesture, published the entire address—which called for mutual disarmament—in Pravda. A sense of hope and possibility briefly flared in Washington and Moscow, and other capitals around the world. "
13 " Take a bucket, fill it with water, Put your hand in—clear up to the wrist. Now pull it out; the hole that remains Is a measure of how you’ll be missed… The moral of this quaint example; To do just the best that you can, Be proud of yourself, but remember, There is no Indispensable Man! "
14 " It is true that it then presupposes that the executive should not habitually be insane!”5 "
15 " Sandra was the product of a world in which Mexicans and Anglos routinely mixed, in part because every Anglo family in El Paso that could afford one had a Mexican housekeeper. Sandra could be a demanding boss; she expected the household helpers to keep up with her rapid-fire schedule, and a few quit or were let go. At the same time, she never raised her voice, and she invited the help to join the family for dinner. When one of the maids became pregnant, she made sure the mother and child were well cared for. "
16 " plenipotentiary "
17 " During the Court’s first oral argument, Scalia asked so many questions that Powell turned to Thurgood Marshall, who sat beside him on the bench, and whispered, “Do you think he knows the rest of us are here? "
18 " She is an achieving woman without an edge. She is good-looking without being alienatingly beautiful and bright without being alarmingly intellectual,' wrote McGrory. "
19 " Do not look back, do not regret, take life as it comes and make the most of it. That was Ada Mae’s way, and in time it would be her daughter’s way, too. "
20 " The end of World War II was, Philip Roth wrote in American Pastoral, “the greatest moment of collective inebriation in history. "
