When I read that the British army had landed thirty-two thousand troops - and I had realized, not very long before, that Philadelphia only had thirty thousand people in it - it practically lifted me out of my chair.

One of the things about the arts that is so important is that in the arts you discover the only way to learn how to do it is by doing it. You can’t write by reading a book about it. The only way to learn how to write a book is to sit down and try to write a book.

To hold the reader’s attention, you have to bring the person who’s reading the book inside the experience of the time: What was it like to have been alive then? What were these people like as human beings?

Since September 11, it seems to me that never in our lifetime, except possibly in the early stages of World War II, has it been clearer that we have as a source of strength, a source of direction, a source of inspiration – our story.

I feel that history is in many ways the most important of all subjects because it is about everything and because it’s about who we are and how we came to be the way we are.

The past after all is only another name for someone else’s present.

I’ve always been dissatisfied, I know that. But lately I find that I reek of discontentment. It fills my throat, and it floods my brain. And sometimes I fear there is no longer a dream, but only the discontentment.

I could not do what I do without the kindness, consideration, resourcefulness and work of librarians, particularly in public libraries. What started me writing history happened because of some curiosity that I had about some photographs I’d seen in the Library of Congress.

We should draw on our story, we should draw on our history. If we don’t know who we are, if we don’t know how we became what we are, we’re going to start suffering from all the obvious detrimental effects of amnesia.

When I’m reading for my own pleasure, I read things other than history or archival material. I read a lot of fiction. I’m very fond of mysteries.