“All men who run for presidency of the United States are amateurs; there is no way of becoming a professional at it, and all of them, win or lose, are forever altered in spirit of character by the ordeal.”

“The best politics for any president is to be a good president.”

“Professionals in a campaign are servants; they can tell him only how to do something once he tells them what it is he wants to do.”

“The first and most essential quality of a presidential candidate, as Averell Harriman once pointed out, is that he should lust for the job - he should want it more than all things, with a passion surpassing all emotion and probably even all principle.”

“Politics is a process which should slowly bring to public all the private worries and hopes of the individual.”

“The development of an image is a mysterious thing: once a public figure has been cast in a public role, it is almost impossible for him to change the character. It is as if someone has assembled personality traits into a convenient pattern, no writer ever re-examines it: it is easier to use the accepted pattern.”

“The Americans of the age were not an irreligious people; and the fact that they were Christian was very important, for the marks of Christianity lay all across the Constitution.”