Robert A. Caro Quotes

When you come into the presence of a leader of men, you know you have come into the presence of fire; that it is best not incautiously to touch that man; that there is something that makes it dangerous to cross him. — WOODROW WILSON

He was to become the lawmaker for the poor and the downtrodden and the oppressed. He was to be the bearer of at least a measure of social justice to those whom social justice had so long been denied. The restorer of at least a measure of dignity to those who so desperately needed to be given some dignity. The redeemer of the promises made by them to America. “It is time to write it in the books of law.” By the time Lyndon Johnson left office he had done a lot of writing in those books, had become, above all presidents save Lincoln, the codifier of compassion, the president who wrote mercy and justice in the statute books by which America was governed.

In my defense: while I am aware that there is no Truth, no objective truth, no single truth, no truth simple or unsimple, either; no verity, eternal or otherwise; no Truth about anything, there are Facts, objective facts, discernible and verifiable. And the more facts you accumulate, the closer you come to whatever truth there is.

It is not clear who will bring to the Whitehouse those useful commodities of vivid language, a sense of history and most important - a sense of humour, but Johnson himself will provide many other attributes. He is effective precisely because he is so determined, industrious, personal and even humourless, particularly in dealing with Congress. (…) Kennedy had a detached and even donnish willingness to grant a merit in the other fellow’s argument. Johnson is not so inclined to retreat and grants nothing in an argument, not even equal time. Ask not what you have done for Lyndon Johnson, but what you have done for him lately. This may not be the most attractive quality of the new administration but it works. The lovers of style are not too happy with the new administration, but the lovers of substance are not complaining.

But I don’t know anything about investigative reporting.” Alan looked at me for what I remember as a very long time. “Just remember,” he said. “Turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamned page.

Few emotions are more ephemeral in the political world than gratitude: appreciation for past favors. Far less ephemeral, however, is hope: the hope of future favors. Far less ephemeral is fear, the fear that in the future, favors may be denied.

Luther King gave people “the feeling that they could be bigger and stronger and more courageous than they thought they could be,” Bayard Rustin said — in part because of the powerful new weapon, non-violent resistance, that had been forged on the Montgomery battlefield.

From the earliest beginnings of Lyndon Johnson’s political life — from his days at college when he had captured control of campus politics — his tactics had consistently revealed a pragmatism and a cynicism that had no discernible limits.

Mrs. Roosevelt felt, was the fault of society; “a civilization which does not provide young people with a way to earn a living is pretty poor,

But when I began researching Robert Moses’ expressway-building, and kept reading, in textbook after textbook, some version of the phrase “the human cost of highways” with never a detailed examination of what the “human cost” truly consisted of or of how it stacked up against the benefits of highways, I found myself simply unable to go forward to the next chapter. I felt I just had to try to show — to make readers not only see but understand and feel — what “human cost” meant.

Then Lyndon Johnson came to Jim Rowe’s office again, to plead with him, crying real tears as he sat doubled over, his face in his hands. “He wept. ‘I’m going to die. You’re an old friend. I thought you were my friend and you don’t care that I’m going to die. It’s just selfish of you, typically selfish.’ ” Finally Rowe said, “ ‘Oh, goddamn it, all right’ ” — and then “as soon as Lyndon got what he wanted,” Rowe was forcibly reminded why he had been determined not to join his staff. The moment the words were out of Rowe’s mouth, Johnson straightened up, and his tone changed instantly from one of pleading to one of cold command. “Just remember,” he said. “I make the decisions. You don’t.

"Sam Rayburn on LBJ's recuperation from his heart attack: "It would kill him if he relaxed.

Nothing he has ever done has been tainted by legality [Robert Moses quoting an anecdote about himself].

To a staff member who, after talking with a senator, said he “thought” he knew which way the senator was going to vote, he snarled, “What the fuck good is thinking to me? Thinking isn’t good enough. Thinking is never good enough. I need to know!” Often, he didn’t know.

We certainly see how government can work to your detriment today, but people have forgotten what government can do for you. They’ve forgotten the potential of government, the power of government, to transform people’s lives for the better.