Erik Larson

My favorite zone is from 1890 -1915, that zone that spans the overlap of the so-called Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. People had such a boundless sense of optimism; They felt they could do anything they wanted to do, and they went out and tried to do it. ”

To me, nuclear weapons are the secret crisis of our time. Frankly, everyone needs to reread John Hersey's 'Hiroshima.' ”

In Washington, we had a grieving President Wilson, very, very much a lonely, grieving man. He had lost his wife of many years in August 1914 at about the same time the war broke out in Europe. ”

One of the really amazing things about the Lusitania saga was that, at the time, there existed in the admiralty a super-secret spy entity known as 'Room 40'. ”

Every time I sit down to reread 'War and Peace' - I've read it three times - I feel as though I've lived another life. ”

I knew from an online search that the Wisconsin State Historical Society, on the vast University of Wisconsin campus, held the papers of Sigrid Schultz, a spunky correspondent for the 'Chicago Tribune' who became one of Martha Dodd's friends in Berlin. ”

One question that often comes up is why, in this age of blogs and tweets and instant digital communication of all kinds, it still takes so long to publish a book. ”

The one place where I do think our culture today has to be extremely careful is this whole thing about illegal aliens. Because any time you start defining a significant block of the population as 'others,' or as less than you, you start getting into dangerous waters. ”

I found a book facing out that I'd always meant to read: William Shirer's 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.' About a third of the way through, I suddenly, finally caught up to the fact that Shirer had been there in Berlin, from 1934 on, and was finally kicked out when the U.S. entered the war. ”

I'd always been interested in maritime history, especially the great liners. I'd have done a book about the Titanic if it hadn't already been done to death by James Cameron and Celine Dion. ”