"The author describes Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn as "seldom at ease without a gavel in his hand."
- Robert A. Caro
"Lyndon Johnson knew how to make the most of such enthusiasm and how to play on it and intensify it. He wanted his audience to become involved. He wanted their hands up in the air. And having been a sc..."
"He took the trolley instead of the bus because it was smoother and he could read on it."
"That speech (Daniel Webster's) “raised the idea of Union above contract or expediency and enshrined it in the American heart."
"They were interchangeable tools, and the catchy phrases continued without abatement."
"its size, the House was an environment in which, as one observer put it, members “could be dealt with only in bodies and droves."
"While Lyndon Johnson was not, as his two assistants knew, a reader of books, he was, they knew, a reader of men— a great reader of men."
"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 fe..."
"A newcomer could ascertain the identity of a town's true leaders – which storekeeper was respected, which farmer was listened to other farmers – only through endless hours of subtle probing of reticen..."
"The most important thing a man has to tell you is what he’s not telling you,” he said. “The most important thing he has to say is what he’s trying not to say."