One-time rival and subsequent usurper Secretary of State Seward finally settled into an assessment of Lincoln that, "His confidence and compassion increase every day.

— Doris Kearns Goodwin

People will love him (Theodore Roosevelt) for the enemies he has made.

— Doris Kearns Goodwin

She feared that she would become a slave to superficial, symbolic duties.

— Doris Kearns Goodwin

She was never satisfied with anything less than perfection, but she was no grind. She was too interested in people.

— Doris Kearns Goodwin

(Taft's mother's) losing her firstborn had convinced her that children are treasures lent not given and that they may be recalled at any time. Parents, she firmly believed, could never love their children too much.

— Doris Kearns Goodwin

Taft was Roosevelt's handpicked successor. I didn't know how deep the friendship was between the two men until I read their almost four hundred letters, stretching back them two early '30s. It made me realize the heartbreak when they ruptured was much more than a political division.

— Doris Kearns Goodwin

Teddy Roosevelt "had relished "every hour" of every day as president. Indeed, (he was) fearing the "dull thud" he would experience upon returning to private life.

— Doris Kearns Goodwin

That is what leadership is all about: staking your ground ahead of where opinion is and convincing people, not simply following the popular opinion of the moment.

— Doris Kearns Goodwin

The American people are strange in their attitudes toward their idols," he (Taft) mused. They lead them on and then "cut their legs from under them," simply "to make their fall all the greater.

— Doris Kearns Goodwin

The author writes that key FDR aide Harry Hopkins was in such poor health near the end of his boss's second term that one observer said he didn't know how Hopkins could possibly report to the president. But, at the onset of war and genuine national emergency, Hopkins was animated with a new sense of purpose.

— Doris Kearns Goodwin