Robert Caro
Robert Caro
Robert Allan Carois an American journalist and author known for his celebrated biographies of United States political figures Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth30 October 1935
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
interest
My interest is in power. How power works.
believe corrupt-power power-corrupts
Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.
book thinking ties
Whenever I go to work I wear a jacket and a tie, because I'm inherently quite lazy, and my books take so long to do, and my publishers don't bug me, so it's so easy to fool yourself into thinking you're working harder than you really are.
people president vietnam
Every president has to live with the result of what Lyndon Johnson did with Vietnam, when he lost the trust of the American people in the presidency.
new-york cities ballet
Everything seems to be going faster and faster. It's really harder to create something that endures. The New York City Ballet has succeeded in doing that.
effort ballet experts
I deliberately made an effort not to become an expert on the ballet.
ballet want mystery
Ballet is sort of a mystery to me. And I don't want to unravel that mystery.
writing people appreciate
You have to be an extremely good reader to appreciate what a good writer is. There are some people who are completely insensitive to good writing.
zero book writing
I don't think of my books as being biographies. I never had any interest in doing a book just to write the life of a great man. I had zero interest in that. My interest is in power. How power works.
wonderful sometimes something-new
As you get older, you sometimes feel that it's harder and harder to get something new and wonderful to come into your life.
book understanding important
I've always felt that no one understands why some books of non-fiction endure and some don't, because there's not much understanding among many non-fiction writers that the narrative is terribly important.
guy political biographies
You can use a biography to examine political power, but only if you pick the right guy.
party years two
Everyone believed the Senate could not really be led. It used to take so long to rise up through seniority. In two years Lyndon Johnson is assistant leader of his party. In four years he is the leader of his party.
choices political democracy
In a democracy, supposedly we hold power by what we do at the ballot box, so therefore the more we know about political power the better our choices should be and the better, in theory, our democracy should be.