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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.

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
Much
Among
Always
Fiction
Books
Understanding
Terribly
Felt
Understands
Book
Narrative
Many
Endure
Important
Writers

More quotes by Robert Caro

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My interest is in power. How power works.
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As you get older, you sometimes feel that it's harder and harder to get something new and wonderful to come into your life.
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Sometimes during a ballet I'll look around and see all these rows of intent faces, concentrating on this beautiful thing up on the stage.
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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.
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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.
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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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You can lose a reader in a blink of an eye. If a person is an engineer or chemist or an anthropologist or whatever, you spoil the whole book for that person if there's obviously ignorance here. What's wrong with so much science fiction is that the science is so lousy that it isn't worth paying attention to.
Robert Caro
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I trained myself to be organized.
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The right of a minority is so important in a democracy.
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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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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.
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I try to have a mood or a rhythm for a chapter.
Robert Caro
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To my mind, the prose in a non-fiction work that's going to endure has to be of the same quality as the prose in a work of fiction that endures.
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 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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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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There's a theory, and I think the theory is right, that in order to make a change you've got to make the whole language of the page harmonious. Well, that's a lot easier with a computer.
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
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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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The Senate is an unknowing world
Robert Caro