Quotes from Brad Meltzer

It's far easier to judge others than to judge yourself.

this cryptic game of hide-and-seek is what makes it one of the greatest historical mysteries. So many of the symbols can be interpreted in so many different ways, there's always the possibility that all we're really looking at is a blank slate onto which anything can be read.

None of us are who we are on our very worst days," he adds. "I know you know that.

And more than that, the United States of America was a whole new type of nation. Nothing like America had ever been tried before in the history of the world.

Be daring, be daring, always be daring. There is no big dream unless you dream big.

After all, bragging and boasting aren't honorable; what's honorable is doing one's duty and sacrificing oneself for a noble cause.

According to Benjamin Franklin, "He that can have patience, can have what he will.

Built on a twisted form of extreme patriotism, it's fueled by racial hatred, mass propaganda, conspiracy theories, the demonizing of minority groups, and the cult of personality around a narcissistic leader. Under the influence of this ideology

onto the unpaved dirt road that runs toward the

There is a fine line between a carefree spirit and a fear of failure

In the last year and a half alone, the Patriots have created a confusing succession of ad hoc governing bodies in New York: First there was the Committee of Correspondence, then the Committee of Fifty, then the Committee of Fifty-One, then the Committee of One Hundred, then the Continental Association, now the New York Provincial Congress. Clearly, these people have no idea what they're doing.

Some observers, particularly Southerners, were critical of this show of force. "I have seen today such a sight as I could never have believed possible at the capital of my country," one Southern reporter wrote, "an inauguration of a President surrounded by armed soldiery, with loaded pieces and fixed bayonets." Another observer reported that the procession "seemed more like escorting a prisoner to his doom than a President to his inauguration.

our work's reactive: In the

Some people need coffee; I need the outdoors.

It is one of the foundational pillars of Abraham Lincoln—and of America itself. We're not simply a country of ideas; we're a country of ideals. What makes America exceptional aren't our weapons or our might. It's our principles and our continuing fight to live up to them. Faced with darkness, we must reach for the light.

History is simply what's behind us.

We make a great bad guy, and they all say they hate us. But at the end of every day, people want to trust us. Because we're their government. And people trust their government.

It was a basic rule of life: Parents are full of promises; children are full of needs and longing. The perfect ingredients for disappointment.

No. It was too warm for a fire." "For you or me, but older women sometimes experience temperature differently.

History doesn't choose individual people. History chooses everyone. Every day.

Littera Scripta Manet

i know that every journey begins with a first step.

If I've learned one thing over the years, it's that every person you encounter brings out a different part of you.

Life takes time. Death, however, reveals itself in an instant.