Modernizing the postal service was particularly important for the soldiers, who relied on letters, newspapers, and magazines from home to sustain mor… - Doris Kearns Goodwin

Excitement about things became a habit, a part of my personality, and the expectation that I should enjoy new experiences often engendered the enjoyment itself.

Elizabeth Blair of brother Frank: he could “not let even a great man set his small dogs on him without kicking the dog & giving his master some share of the resentment.

The experience of this campaign vindicated his belief that politics was essentially personal relations. In a twenty-minute appearance, he limited his speeches to five minutes so that he could spend the remaining fifteen minutes “touching” his audience. “A five-minute speech,” he later said, “with fifteen minutes spent afterward is much more effective than a fifteen-minute speech, no matter how inspiring, that leaves only five minutes for handshaking.