The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

Today, we are fortunate that the historical novel has reached such extraordinary heights of technical mastery. The ability of society to connect with the past holds out the greatest hope for it being able to embrace the future.

There is a fluency and an ease with which true mastery and expertise always expresses itself, whether it be in writing, whether it be in a mathematical proof, whether it be in a dance that you see on stage, really in every domain. But I think the question is, you know, where does that fluency and mastery come from?

Good lawyering is usually cerebral and impersonally. You can convince a judge with a mastery of facts, detail, and precedent - not a story from the gut about how you feel a certain way.

Roman civilization had achieved, within the bounds of its technology, relatively as great a mastery of time and space as we have achieved today.

I want to know everything there is to know about a specific area. And it's winning at that mastery that really drives me. I want to be best at something. I don't even know what 'this' is, but there's this inner drive to be the best.

I met Edward Teller. Everything he believed in and stood for was antithetical to what I believed in and stood for. I like running into that in life. I like extreme points of view, a level of commitment - and I certainly love mastery.

Mastery over the body - its impulses, its needs, its size - is paramount; to lose control is to risk beauty, and to risk beauty is to risk desirability, and to risk desirability is to risk entitlement to sexuality and love and self-esteem.

We need to tap the resource of current and retiring science and math professionals that have both content mastery and the practical experience to serve as effective teachers.