I never conceived of my biographies as merely telling the lives of famous men but rather as a means of illuminating their times and the great forces … - Robert A. Caro

I, sir, take a different view of the whole matter. I look upon Ohio and South Carolina to be parts of one whole — parts of the same country — and that country is my country.… I come here not to consider that I will do this for one distinct part of it, and that for another, but … to legislate for the whole.” And finally Webster turned to a higher idea: the idea — in and of itself — of Union, permanent and enduring.

The belief that “a political system created in a much simpler economic era still affords the people effective control through their votes over the complex industrial state which has come into being” is a popular delusion.

Don’t you remember what cotton was selling at when Mr. Roosevelt went into office?” he would ask. “Don’t you remember when it was selling at a nickel? “Don’t you remember when it was cheaper to shoot your cattle than to feed them? “Don’t you remember when you couldn’t get a loan, and the banks were going to take your land away? “I’m a farmer like you. I was raised up on a farm. I know what it’s like to be afraid that they’re going to take your land away. And that’s why I’m for Mr. Roosevelt. “What President ever cared about the farmer before Mr. Roosevelt?” he would ask. “Did Hoover care about the farmer? Did Coolidge care about the farmer? The only President who ever cared about the farmer was Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was for the poor man. He wanted to give the poor man a chance. He wanted the farmers to have a break. And he gave ’em a break. He gave us a break! He’s the one who did it for us! He’s the one who’s doin’ it for us! And he’s the one who’s goin’ to do it for us! AND I’M BACKIN’ HIM!” The people before him were, many of them, people he had seen for the first time only a few minutes before. But as a result of his brief conversations with them, he could attach to their faces not only names but circumstances of their lives — and, in so doing, could make them feel that their destiny was linked to Roosevelt’s destiny, and to Lyndon Johnson’s.