“An adult friend of Lincoln's: "Life was to him a school.”

“And then I wonder what it would be like if he really was falling for me, because Lincoln in real life is a million times more intense than Lincoln in letters... and I'm seriously falling for him.”

“The intermittent depression that had shadowed him throughout his adult life was about to envelop him once again. ”

“If at first you don't succeed, just study the life of Abraham Lincoln.”

“And so the twins had remained virgins. Julia and Valentina watched all of their high school and college friends disappear one by one into the adult world of sex, until they were the only people they knew who lingered in the world of the uninitiated. "What was it like?" they asked each friend. The answers were vague. Sex was a private joke: you had to be there.”

“Abraham Lincoln did not go to Gettysburg having commissioned a poll to find out what would sell in Gettysburg. There were no people with percentages for him, cautioning him about this group or that group or what they found in exit polls a year earlier. When will we have the courage of Lincoln?”