I read a history book that said there once was a cotton gin in Ewing,

A good heavy book holds you down. It's an anchor that keeps you from getting up and having another gin and tonic.

The overarching theme in the questionnaire, I think, is trying too hard to gin herself up, ... She makes it sound like the White House counsel's office is the solicitor general, which it's not. She's presenting it as an office with major constitutional responsibility.

The people who read the history books tend to have a natural zeal and are alarmingly well-read.

I love to read history; at its best, it is an art.

I shrugged the questions away. I’d find out the answers soon enough—body by bloody, bloody body.