97 Quotes by Robert Caro

You have to be an extremely good reader to appreciate what a good writer is. There are some people who are completely insensitive to good writing.

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.

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

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

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.

To my mind, the prose in a non-fiction work that's going to endure has to be of the same quality as the prose in a work of fiction that endures.

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.

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

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.