Robert Caro famous quotes

At the ballet, you really feel like you're in the presence of something outside the rest of your life. Higher than the rest of your life.
-- Robert Caro

#Ballet #Like You #Feels

I never wanted to do biography just to tell the life of a famous man. I always wanted to use the life of a man to examine political power, because democracy shapes our lives
-- Robert Caro

#Men #Political #Democracy

Robert Moses wasn't elected to anything. We're taught that in a democracy power comes from being elected. He had more power than anyone, and he held it for 48 years
-- Robert Caro

#Years #Democracy #Taught

You come in off the street, through the doors of the theater. You sit down. The lights go down and the curtain goes up. And you're in another world
-- Robert Caro

#Doors #Light #World

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

#Book #Thinking #Ties

Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.
-- Robert Caro

#Believe #Corrupt Power #I Believe

Herman Brown was a businessman who wanted value for money spent. His relationships with politicians were measured by that criterion.
-- Robert Caro

#Political #Politician #Criteria

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

#Choices #Political #Democracy

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

#Country #Texas #Years

I trained myself to be organized,
-- Robert Caro

#Organized

Nobody believes this, but I write very fast,
-- Robert Caro

#Believe #Writing

I try to have a mood or a rhythm for a chapter,
-- Robert Caro

#Trying #Mood #Chapters

I never went to a ballet until I was 45 years old. I don't know why.
-- Robert Caro

#Years #Ballet

The right of a minority is so important in a democracy.
-- Robert Caro

#Democracy #Important #Minorities

I think President Obama has done more than he is given credit for.
-- Robert Caro

#Thinking #President #Done

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

#Writing #Long #Afternoon

If it's coming near the end of a chapter and I'm really getting into it, I tend to get up earlier and earlier, just because I'm excited to get to work.
-- Robert Caro

#Excited #Ends #Chapters

If things are going well, if the writing's coming along, I jump out of bed happy. And if the previous day has been bad, I get out of bed disgruntled.
-- Robert Caro

#Writing #Bed #Wells

Someday a political genius will come along and make the Senate work.
-- Robert Caro

#Political #Genius #Someday

There's a real feeling when you know you're getting it right. It's a physical feeling.
-- Robert Caro

#Real #Feelings

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

#Party #Years #Two

I sometimes feel that if your book sells more than 20 years, then there's something in it that you can say, gee, I did something that endures, that's timeless
-- Robert Caro

#Book #Years #Sometimes

The New York City Ballet is obviously speaking to a whole new generation and bringing it the same wonder and beauty that it brought previous generations
-- Robert Caro

#New York #Cities #Ballet

Sometimes during a ballet I'll look around and see all these rows of intent faces, concentrating on this beautiful thing up on the stage.
-- Robert Caro

#Beautiful #Ballet #Looks

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

#Believe #Book #Taught

As you get older, you sometimes feel that it's harder and harder to get something new and wonderful to come into your life.
-- Robert Caro

#Wonderful #Sometimes #Something New

Every president has to live with the result of what Lyndon Johnson did with Vietnam, when he lost the trust of the American people in the presidency.
-- Robert Caro

#People #President #Vietnam

Everything seems to be going faster and faster. It's really harder to create something that endures. The New York City Ballet has succeeded in doing that.
-- Robert Caro

#New York #Cities #Ballet

I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term.
-- Robert Caro

#Believe #Writing #Trying

I deliberately made an effort not to become an expert on the ballet.
-- Robert Caro

#Effort #Ballet #Experts

Ballet is sort of a mystery to me. And I don't want to unravel that mystery.
-- Robert Caro

#Ballet #Want #Mystery

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

#Zero #Book #Writing

I like new ballets because they're totally new. As you get older, new experiences are harder and harder to come by, so it's pretty great to have a new experience.
-- Robert Caro

#Harder

The moment the curtain rose on that first ballet, I knew something wonderful and new had come into my life. I can still see the first scene. The ballet was Divertimento No. 15
-- Robert Caro

#Rose #Ballet #Firsts

Lyndon Johnson, as majority leader of the United States Senate, he made the Senate work
-- Robert Caro

#Leader #Majority #United States

The ballet embodies the notes of music. And sometimes you almost feel like you can see the notes dance up there on the stage.
-- Robert Caro

#Dance #Ballet #Sometimes

You can use a biography to examine political power, but only if you pick the right guy.
-- Robert Caro

#Guy #Political #Biographies

The Senate is an unknowing world
-- Robert Caro

#World #Unknowing

My predictions are notably inaccurate
-- Robert Caro

#Predictions