Quotes by Robert Caro - Page 2

I used to work very long hours. Then I started to realize that the stuff that I was writing in the late afternoons, I was generally throwing out. So I quit earlier than I used to.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Afternoon
Hours
Late
Long
Long Hours
Stuff
Throwing
Writing
Earlier
Generally
Quit
Realize
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There's a theory, and I think the theory is right, that in order to make a change you've got to make the whole language of the page harmonious. Well, that's a lot easier with a computer.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Order
Pages
Thinking
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I was trying to learn about Lyndon Johnson when he was young and creating his first political machine in the Texas hill country. I moved there for three years. You had to learn that world
Robert Caro / Journalist
Country
Creating
Texas
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I was trying to learn about Lyndon Johnson when he was young and creating his first political machine in the Texas hill country. I moved there for three years. You had to learn that world.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Creating
Johnson
Moved
Texas
Lyndon
Lyndon Johnson
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You know, my first three or four drafts, you can see, are on legal pads in long hand. And then I go to a typewriter, and I know everybody's switching to a computer. And I'm sort of laughed at.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Legal
Computer
Laughed
Pads
Switching
Three
Typewriter
Drafts
Hand
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I don't think of my books as being biographies. I never had any interest in doing a book just to write the life of a great man. I had zero interest in that. My interest is in power. How power works.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Zero
Men
Biographies
Book
Writing
Life Power Great
Works
Great Man
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I've always felt that no one understands why some books of non-fiction endure and some don't, because there's not much understanding among many non-fiction writers that the narrative is terribly important.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Book
Important
Understanding
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In a democracy, supposedly we hold power by what we do at the ballot box, so therefore the more we know about political power the better our choices should be and the better, in theory, our democracy should be.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Choices
Democracy
Political
Political Power
Theory
Power Democracy Political
Box
Ballot
Ballot Box
Hold
Supposedly
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Everyone believed the Senate could not really be led. It used to take so long to rise up through seniority. In two years Lyndon Johnson is assistant leader of his party. In four years he is the leader of his party.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Johnson
Leader
Party
Senate
Two
Years
Rise
Assistant
Believed
Led
Lyndon
Lyndon Johnson
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Among the reasons that you go into journalism, I suppose, are some rather idealistic, even foolish reasons. In my case one of the reasons was I wanted to explain how things really work, how political power really works.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Journalism
Political
Reason
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Now, for this book I had to learn the world of the Senate, which is really for all that's written about the Senate, an unknowing world and its mores, and the way things work with subcommittees and all. I loved learning about that.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Senate
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If you really want to show power in its larger aspects, you need to show the effects on the powerless, for good or ill - the human cost of public works. That's what I try to do, show not only how power works but its effect on people.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Cost
Ill
Powerless
Good Power People
Aspects
Works
Power Good People
Public
Effect
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Whenever I go to work I wear a jacket and a tie, because I'm inherently quite lazy, and my books take so long to do, and my publishers don't bug me, so it's so easy to fool yourself into thinking you're working harder than you really are.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Book
Fool
Harder
Lazy
Publishers
Thinking
Ties
Bug
Inherently
Jacket
Tie
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I write from seven to about noon. I used to try to write longer, but I read and I found that I was always getting myself tired by working in the afternoon and then I was just throwing out what I wrote in the afternoon, so writing then was counterproductive.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Tired
Trying
Writing
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There used to be this feeling under Eisenhower and Kennedy and Roosevelt and Truman that government was a solution. Trust in the presidency fell precipitously under Johnson - real lows. And it's never come back. It's a trend that, if you're liberal, is really discouraging.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Government
Discouraging
Feelings
Johnson
Lows
Presidency
Real
Truman
Eisenhower
Liberal
Solution
Roosevelt
Trend
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We're taught Lord Acton's axiom: all power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believed that when I started these books, but I don't believe it's always true any more. Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Power
Absolute Power
Believe
Book
Lord
Power Corrupts
Taught
Started
Always Believe I Believe
About
More
Power Believe I Believe
Absolute Power Corrupts
Always
Any
True
Books
Axiom
Corrupt
Cleanse
Corrupts
More Power
Reveals
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It's very easy to fool yourself that you're working, you know, when you're really not working very hard. I mean, I'm very lazy. So for me, I would always have an excuse, you know, to go - quit early, go to a museum, you know. So I do everything I can to make myself remember this is a job. I keep a schedule.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Excuse
Fool
Lazy
Myself Yourself Me
Museum
Quit
Schedule
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You can lose a reader in a blink of an eye. If a person is an engineer or chemist or an anthropologist or whatever, you spoil the whole book for that person if there's obviously ignorance here. What's wrong with so much science fiction is that the science is so lousy that it isn't worth paying attention to.
Robert Caro / Journalist
Book
Eye
Ignorance
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Robert Caro Quotes - Page 2

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