67 Quotes by Robert A. Caro

Quietly, dispassionately, Russell would make sure the senator understood not only the reasons why he should take the same position on the bill that Russell was taking, but the reasons why he should take an opposing position.

You can draw any kind of picture you want on a clean slate and indulge your every whim in the wilderness in laying out a New Delhi, Canberra, or Brasilia, but when you operate in an overbuilt metropolis, you have to hack your way with a meat ax. (Robert Moses)

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.

He could follow someone’s mind around, and get where it was going before the other fellow knew where it was going.

Senators came to realize that he understood not only their bills but the reasons they had introduced them;

A laconic Texas lawmaker declined to use his considerable influence to intervene in a loud dispute between his colleagues. When asked why not, he said, "They're not voting. If they're not voting, they're not passing any laws. If they're not passing any laws, they're not hurting anybody.

Decades of the seniority rule had conferred influence in the Senate not on men who broke new ground but on men who were careful not to.

Congress has a deep, vested interest in its own inefficiency.

The breath of life of the Senate is, of course, continuity,