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I never wanted to do biography just to tell the life of a famous man. I always wanted to use the life of a man to examine political power, because democracy shapes our lives

Robert Caro

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Robert Caro
Age: 89
Born: 1935
Born: October 30
Historian
Journalist
Writer
New York City
New York
Robert Allan Caro
Robert A. Caro
Men
Lives
Life
Use
Tell
Biography
Political
Examine
Power
Biographies
Wanted
Famous
Always
Shapes
Never
Democracy

More quotes by Robert Caro

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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.
Robert Caro
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There's a feeling about it. You feel almost like a cabinetmaker, laying planks. There's a real feeling when you know you're getting it right. It's a physical feeling.
Robert Caro
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I used to work very long hours. Then I started to realize that the stuff that I was writing in the late afternoons, I was generally throwing out. So I quit earlier than I used to.
Robert Caro
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I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term.
Robert Caro
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The Senate is an unknowing world
Robert Caro
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If it's coming near the end of a chapter and I'm really getting into it, I tend to get up earlier and earlier, just because I'm excited to get to work.
Robert Caro
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Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.
Robert Caro
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The New York City Ballet is obviously speaking to a whole new generation and bringing it the same wonder and beauty that it brought previous generations
Robert Caro
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I like new ballets because they're totally new. As you get older, new experiences are harder and harder to come by, so it's pretty great to have a new experience.
Robert Caro
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The right of a minority is so important in a democracy.
Robert Caro
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I deliberately made an effort not to become an expert on the ballet.
Robert Caro
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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.
Robert Caro
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My interest is in power. How power works.
Robert Caro
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At the ballet, you really feel like you're in the presence of something outside the rest of your life. Higher than the rest of your life.
Robert Caro
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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.
Robert Caro
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I try to have a mood or a rhythm for a chapter.
Robert Caro
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My predictions are notably inaccurate
Robert Caro
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The moment the curtain rose on that first ballet, I knew something wonderful and new had come into my life. I can still see the first scene. The ballet was Divertimento No. 15
Robert Caro
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I never went to a ballet until I was 45 years old. I don't know why.
Robert Caro
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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.
Robert Caro