Biographies Quote by H. W. Brands

People in show business who are interested in politics, like Ronald Reagan, fare so well because they do know the magic of dealing with…

— Liberace

If you do a serious presidential bio, you want to supply the reader with maximum material because otherwise you're offending the reader. A president…

— Amity Shlaes

That's always been the case in America; there's been a big spectrum in how much people are interested in American politics.

— William Kristol

Political biography is in the doldrums. No one wants to read 800 pages or so of cradle-to-grave dead politics, especially if it's familiar stuff…

— Jane Ridley

You got to have people at the top who respond to and are selected by presidents.

— Dick Cheney

You might say presidents are drafting the first chapter of their memoirs in these seventh-year State of the Union addresses. They're trying to get…

— H. W. Brands

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

— Robert Caro

You can always find people, ordinary people, who will support your particular view, so it becomes a politics of personality, especially at the presidential…

— H. W. Brands

Once a president gets to the White House, the only audience that is left that really matters is history.

— Doris Kearns Goodwin

When I hear a politician speak biographically, I never know what's part of the campaign biography narrative that's been carefully crafted.

— Terry Gross

When you cover politics, you realize that knowing how to talk about character matters more and more. The way we hold ideas is more…

— David Brooks

Presidential legacies are valuable things, too valuable to be left up to historians.

— Thomas Frank