Robert A. Caro

They were interchangeable tools, and the catchy phrases continued without abatement.

That speech (Daniel Webster's) __aised the idea of Union above contract or expediency and enshrined it in the American heart.

He took the trolley instead of the bus because it was smoother and he could read on it.

Lyndon Johnson knew how to make the most of such enthusiasm and how to play on it and intensify it. He wanted his audience to become involved. He wanted their hands up in the air. And having been a schoolteacher he knew how to get their hands up. He began, in his speeches, to ask questions.

Sam Rayburn on LBJ's recuperation from his heart attack: "It would kill him if he relaxed.

The author describes Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn as "seldom at ease without a gavel in his hand.

He could be as memorable an orator as his father, particularly when he was speaking on that topic that had captured his imagination;

On the rare occasions on which a movie was shown, there was as much suspense in the audience over whether the electricity would hold out to the end of the film as there was in the film itself.

if one characteristic of Lyndon Johnson was a boundless ambition, another was a willingness, on behalf of that ambition, to make efforts that were also without bounds.

(LBJ) had what a journalist calls __ genius for analogy__ made the point unforgettably, in dialect, in the rhythmic cadences of a great storyteller. Master of the senate

Lyndon Johnson__ sentences were the sentences of a man with a remarkable gift for words, not long words but evocative, of a man with a remarkable gift for images, homey images of a vividness that infused the sentences with drama.

Old men want to feel that the experience which has come with their years is valuable, that their advice is valuable, that they possess a sagacity that could be obtained only through experience_ a sagacity that could be of use to young men if only young men would ask.

their anxiety, justified or not, was genuine,

But although the cliche says that power always corrupts, what is seldom said ... is that power always reveals. When a man is climbing, trying to persuade others to give him power, concealment is necessary. ... But as a man obtains more power, camouflage becomes less necessary.

The farm work they hated was the only work they knew. Often, even the basic skills of plumbing or electricity or mechanical work were mysteries to them _ as were the job discipline and the subtleties that children raised in the industrial world learn without thinking about them; starting work on time, working set hours, taking orders from strangers instead of their father, playing office politics.