Isaac D'Israeli Quotes

When the modern scholar cites from a classic text, the quotation seems to burn a hole in his own drab page.

I read round the subject, I make a skeleton outline, and then I start work in the relevant archives. During the marshaling of the material, I copy the material from each archive file across to the relevant chapter in the skeleton outline.

The initial research will be very indiscriminate. I do a lot of reading, buy a stack of books and read and digest them, and then I start doing phone interviews and archival research and then the travelling.

I research every possible bit of information I can find. Then I use about a tenth of it. But I have to know all the information first; otherwise, I'm not going to convince myself, and if I can't convince myself, then I'm not going to convince the reader.

In the early days, I promoted the idea of spending time in libraries to gain facts that other investors didn't have. Not many people did that kind of research, so it worked.

Research to me is as important or more important than the writing. It is the foundation upon which the book is built.

All the stories in 'The UnAmericans' required interviews, travel, hours and hours in the archives. All of that stuff is so important in the beginning, but I reach a point where I have to shuck it away.

Being one of my sources is exhausting. It's not one interview and you're done. I keep going back until I feel like I understand everything.

I really enjoy researching, and for almost every piece, I research enough to write a book.

I quote others only in order the better to express myself.

Science is about filling in the details.

I go to bars and restaurants, and I sit and I eavesdrop on people and I watch people in shopping centers and, you know, I read the newspapers and I talk to the Trenton cops, and I just get a lot of information that comes in that somehow turns into a book.

I have a very long pre-writing process where I'm jotting down ideas in a notebook and ripping out relevant newspaper articles - a long fact-finding mission.

I love researching, I love interviewing.

Surveys give us a way of finding out what people across the country are thinking.

A great many decisions just can’t be made with confidence because the data just doesn’t exist …. [however] just because we don’t have the information doesn’t mean that we can’t get it.

Let us gather facts in order to get ourselves thinking.

I don't do much more than organise other people's ideas and insights and thoughts, and sort of harvest them, and inventory them and present them.

'Columbinus' was four years of my life, collaborating with a lot of people and gathering lots of information.

For me myself, I feel it's always interesting gathering data. I have my team who do that. I think they feed me through specific things that I might find valuable.

And also it's an ever-gathering process. If I pick up the Sporting News or some sports publication and there's an article on somebody and I think I might see that player, I will tear it out and put it in a file, and I have a looseleaf book so when we're going to play that particular team I take out all these clippings and things I pulled out, I go through them, highlight them, put them in the book.

I'm supporting anything that we can do to find out how this stuff is happening.

I've taken stuff from people, too. You know though, if you steal from one person, you're just a thief. But if you steal from everyone, that's research.

The best research you can do is to talk to people.

The research is the most interesting part… That’s how I work. I go some place and I walk it and I talk to people until I find what I’ve come for. Or not. Fortunately, I tend to find what I’m after.