how dare an insider give away the secret handshake? how dare an insider talk about other insiders in a way that perhaps might not be in keeping with the codes we have been watching 10. ..

>> from the political left to the right. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> i'm a senior fellow at the ethics and public policy center, and author of several books, most recently how the west really lost god. am also the founder and president of this organization, the kirkpatrick society, the group comprised of women, bloggers, book authors, journalists, and other writerly types who share an intellectual and moral commitment to a broadly construed set of ideas about what's best for societies and for human beings. the kirkpatrick society advances of these ideals to share our works with one another, to broaden our intellectual horizon, the exposure to new ideas and to benefit members through these and other activities. toward all these and i'm

delighted to introduce our guest speaker today, michael novak. as mentioned in the invitation to today's lunch, michel's biography defies easy description. in fact, we could easily spend this entire time enumerating his books, honors and titles and in so doing we wouldn't even touch on his essays, columns, reviews, blogs and many other contributions to the world of ideas. let alone to the many of the world's that he is helped to shape. therefore, we must strive to be pithy and messy it is an exceptional challenge in this case. michael has been by turn a novelist, essayist, book author, ambassador, theologian, philosopher, poet, or fester, and resident intellectual here at the american enterprise institute who currently teaches in florida. he is the recipient of 26 on the

rate degrees, that's at last count, and among many other honors was awarded the most prestigious annual award for religious thought on the planet, the templeton prize for progress in religion, 1994. he's been an advisor to some of the greatest public figures of recent times. among them, pope john paul ii, ronald reagan, and margaret thatcher, about whom you will be hearing more as well. his friends and acquaintances have ranged from the lowest to the highest in society, as did those of his late wife, artist, mother and beloved friend, karen novak. michael has worked over 2000 or for those unfamiliar with her art. please do see. in addition to all of this, michael is also an unflaggingly generous and dear friend who could although have been known, given his gift of -- which i can

never say. but instead he decided to become as the one of the foremost intellectuals on the past century. michael's written work is impossible to summarize here, but his seminal 1982 book, the spirit of democratic capitalism is a must for any educated person. it has been called most important contribution since adam smith. it changed the course of history in eastern europe, the course of intellectual history in the united states, and perhaps also events beyond the ways that are still reverberating. also, do you read, please, and discuss, and facebook tag, and otherwise share and respect upon his outstanding new memoir, "writing from left to right: my journey from liberal to conservative."

he is here to talk about that new book today, and about much else. we will do this in two parts. i think michael wants to begin with some personal reminiscence, including some of the people you read about in history books, and then brought it out to ideas. how fortunate those people all work to have known michael. the kirkpatrick society members and guests, welcome michael novak. [applause] >> mary has done so much to put this all together. i'm extremely grateful to her. but it's such an honor to take part in a kirkpatrick society event. wow. karen and i were lucky enough to be very close to jean, who would get my vote if there was such a position. it was for me all those years, aristotle said, you learn wisdom

by turning to a model of it. practical wisdom. and actually karen has a drawing of her image and practical wisdom which is the archer on the cover of the book of one of the books are passed around of cairns work. the archer who has to hit the bull's-eye no matter what the wind, no matter what the weight of his era, no matter what the power of his boat. he has to size all that up in a second or two and let fly. she felt that struggle with her art. there are no rules for everything you have to do, but he just have to concentrate on what's the right thing here, there, and the right way, the right time. and hit it perfectly. peak performance, some people call it. that's what every work of art is. so she loved it that archer. we are passing around a few things of hers because she was

the axis of my life, and nothing would have happened without her, and i'm forever grateful to her. let me mention this one, i think has gone all the way around already, hasn't it? this is karen with president reagan. on a date while i'm away somewhere last night i got to tell you the story. it's very funny. let me begin with lady thatcher for a couple of boastful reasons and the couple just plain, fun reasons. she once told me this story of her first meeting -- i don't remember, g7 or g8 orgy night. i can't recall now, as prime minister. and it was in france that year. they rotate. and, of course, that put the president in the chair. he took the chair and he never introduced her.

she was getting more and more uncomfortable and squirmy. he never applause, but when he did he said something that made her, another black cloud came up for her. he said, oh, i almost forgot to introduce the new prime minister of the united kingdom, margaret thatcher. and he said, i am sure, as it says in the bible, first god created adam and then he pulled a rib to make a help mate and i'm sure the prime minister will be a great help mate to our deliberations. and so she, i have to say, if she had a fault she didn't much like the french. she said ask only as she could that she thanked him for his courtesy, and she said, but we must read a different bible in

the united kingdom. she said, and our bible it says that first god created adam, and then having learned from his mistake, he created eve. [laughter] she felt better. on another occasion, evidence of her attitude to the french, on her very first visit to washington to visit the white house, she came to a dinner jointly sponsored by aei and heritage, and she began by saying how she was always happy to visit the greatest and longest lives -- longest lived republic. she said that such a refreshing contrast. a friend of mine recently went up to the library and oxfordshire and requested a copy of the latest french constitution, and the librarian looked up over his glasses and

said, my dear, we don't carry periodicals. [laughter] margaret took great pleasure in that. we were lucky, karen and i, in spending about a week with her in a home of a friend, having breakfast and lunch with her, just telling stories back and forth. we just hit it off from the very first. at that very dinner, forgive me for being very boastful, but so many great things have just happened to me in my life. washington wrote, one of his presidential order to for thanksgiving, that no people in the world have more reasons to give thanksgiving to god for his many signal interventions, as the people of the united states. interventions we have experienced. this is not high in the sky. this is simply lived through. i must say i have, no one has

greater reason than i to be grateful. first of all, for karen, but for so many other things that happen. so she said to me that very night, this was reception, go up and shake hands, for all the aei and heritage fellows, and spouses. and she said, oh, michael novak, she said. really the first words out of her mouth, she said, you are doing the most important work in the world. now, that was sweet. the sweetest part came right afterwards. i met this guy behind me overhearing this and he says, oh, and you do, irving, she said. [laughter] oh, wow. you know, ready to die.

and into the series, she said she must come visit me at downing street. well, as a matter fact, i had a trip to britain and so i did show up. stopped in and she said oh, michael, i'm so sorry. she said an emergency issues come up and i must rush to the cabinet when. come to me with -- come with me to my office. she said you must see. look, she had me the spirit of democratic capitalism, and she opened it up and she said, see, just what i told you. every page is marked. in some places she would translate american and british. and she flipped through a few pages and said you must come back, promise me you will come back. so i did have a longer second visit with her. now, when she said the most important work in the world, she said, because you are making

plays the moral character of capitalism. and, of course, margaret was nothing if not moralism. she was a very deeply, privately, you don't talk about this very much, but very deeply religious woman, methodist and background, and cared very much about the virtues of the british people. the virtues that made them what they were and the virtues of weather and danger of losing, which she thought the system was going to destroy. that may have been her greatest accomplishment actually is recovering an understanding of british virtue. but she understood really the key point that capitalism is not markets. we've had a markets since biblical times. markets are pre-capitalism, and it's not even free enterprise exactly. what it is, it's a culture of mind.

it's a culture of invention, discovery. almost everything in this room, these lights, certainly the television, the microphones, even the plastic, even these plastic things, all this -- none of these were in existence at the time of the american founding, they've all been invented from behind virtually every corporation, every non-incorporated business. it is an idea, a discovery, and invention or a new way of providing a service, or any service provided. so it's a mind based system, and it requires a kind of attentiveness. and then a willingness to sacrifice, to give up the pleasures of the day to make this thing work, for the sake of thanks to mark, which you may not see. i'm not going to linger, but boy, was she on that wavelength.

now, let me jump to this photograph of karen at the white house. i was probably on assignment, i doubt that was. i was even geneva or burn for the president to be asked me to be ambassador three times, three short things. actually he was responsible for it. jean met me in the dining room your on the day after the inauguration. of ronald reagan. and said, michael, i have something i need to ask you. she said, i need an ambassador in geneva and you're the only man i want to go, i want to send. and i said when? and she said on the 30th, nine days. i said, i have to talk this over with karen. we have a son in high school and not sure this is the right year

to leave him. and it wasn't. [laughter] anyway, i said, can you only 24 hours? she said not a second more than that, i have to know. she said we will clear up all your papers, we will have all the papers done. and i asked, i would love to have a message from the president or something. i wanted to go there and say i will talk to the president and this is my mission. anyway, so all that was arranged. they sped me through my hearings. in fact, i'm not even sure i had hearings before the senate. i think they had to skip those provision the. and then there i was in europe with everybody dying to meet a reaganite. they inspected my boots. they felt me to see a fat again

host. they were surprised i wasn't wearing a stetson. it was as if i had green hair or something. everybody looked at me with great intensity. at the first dinner, they called it the western european -- western europeans and others, the free world alliance. they had a dinner, and i said, after a little while i said, this seems like an ancient jewish or christian festival where every so often people get together and burned alive offering, and tonight i'm it. anyway, they wanted to know what happened, i read on the plane going over, really, this is what i get. the assignment, and it's the briefing books put out by the carter administration. it's like 109 issues, more than

one page an issue. and i read it very slowly and carefully, and then so at the first dinner i was asked, what changes would expect from the united states? and i said, well, it will be a change, but a great country with many commitments is like an aircraft carrier. and if we change our direction by a degree or two here, we are going to land much farther away from the across the ocean. but you have to change slowly or you took all the planes. i said you can expect very few changes. i read through the minutes, 103 or 109 issues that there are, i think you can expect us to vote the way the carter administration voted. i said, promise you with different ideas and different reasons, a general philosophy. we didn't have a philosophy

about this. i did, but there was nobody to clear me. and i said, when we do, i will often give you different arguments for why we make a decision. often, a decision, i didn't say this, but often a decision in the carter presidency, he really didn't want to make but he was forced by this committee, and then -- none of that is going to come. anyway, at the end of, sorry, i am just we associating here, but at the end of it, the ambassador from nora came to me and said you made a hero out of me. visits to -- this is exactly what i wrote to the home office. they didn't believe me. that's the way it happened. he said thank you for speaking the truth. that was a nice thing to hear. it wasn't always so nice. it was often bitter. it was like i wrote eugene, my

first cable to jean was, jean, why did you send me to the sewer? i feel like i'm under constantinople of the sewers with sludge and the rats. they are doing nothing, nobody is praising human rights. or honoring human rights. all they are doing is demeaning, dirty. and chile. they tried to keep the commission so busy, you know, 10 days on chile, two weeks in israel, you know, like that. they would never get around to the soviet union or the eastern bloc. never in 39 years had a violation of human rights behind the iron curtain ever been denounced by human rights groups. never. and jean and i were determined that we change. we figured out the way it works,

and by the next time we got the condemnation from poland for martial law and for imprisoning so many people. remember reagan at christmas lighting that candle in the window asking americans to be in solidarity with the poles, cold, dreadful time. to honor that come in december the president of poland on the anniversary called me back, you know, european metals are very garish. they are all over the place and then they give you want to sleep with. [laughter] anyway, and to ask if i go down to the reagan monument which they have since put out, beautiful monument. and light candles and put them

at his the. the president spoke about we need to worry about russia and ukraine is not solid yet, and there's still lots of places that need liberty. and what we can do for others, what the united states did for us. the story about ronald reagan that i love best, there are a number of them but the one i love this, while i was gone they had a night at the white house. solidarity and martial law. wasn't there a movie made of something called let poland beat holland? and so, the president invited both of us to go, and i wasn't there. it turns out all of the central eastern european's that they knew, rostenkowski and archbishop krol, you know, a noted person with a slavic

background be invited to. they were all staying in the reception room, all men, and karen, and when the door suddenly parted and president reagan walked in with sort of natural light flow when he walks in. alderman turned their back on karen. reagan spotted this instantly, cut right through them, walked over, took her arm and led her over to the tables, seated her beside him. when i came back, canvassing, he's so galante. he is just so galante. then she told me another story how rostenkowski was sitting across from her. this must've been, what, 82, and the economy suddenly starting to turn after a very bad first year.

and karen said, the first thing she said to the president was, i noticed the mr. president, they don't call it reaganomics anymore. [laughter] what she meant wise one willy moved washington, you had to buy house and rates, mortgage rates were up in the 20s, 19, 21. we just sold a house in syracuse when we had 5%, 7% when the left. we expected to buy a home here for 19%, and anyway, it was unbelievable. and the unemployment and the rest, you can go back and look at the facts, which is what reagan used to call the misery affects. you member the question at the debate with carter was -- are we

better off -- are you better off than you were four years ago? you know, this was again when his getting elected against carter. okay, there are 100 stories about that, too, but what i liked about this, i came back to get my report to the president, and we had a moment together. i said, mr. president, my wife thinks you're so galante, and i recalled the story. i said, let poland the polling and you came over and took her by the arm and brought her over and seated her beside you, and entertained are all eating. he said, i remember. i said, she thinks you're so galante. i think you just have an eye for the most beautiful woman. [laughter] he slapped me on the arm the way men do, and he said you got it, buddy. or you nailed it, buddy, something like that.

anyway, a little bit about john paul ii. these of the greatest stories. of course i was a very excited when he was elected suddenly, quite suddenly. i remember getting the word late in the afternoon here at aei right after i came, and i couldn't believe it. summary from eastern europe, still -- so astonishing. down, athletic. his mother was born in slovakia, which is where my family is them. naturally i felt a kinship with them. sometimes you're not conscious of it, but if somebody points to the bottom of the map and says something nice, any number of minutes of americans, many don't know, don't care but if you're

from that part of the world, we just respond that way. i happened to be over in rome for a conference, a conference for slovak americans who happened to be there, and the slow backs overseas -- slow backs anyway, i was invited. the wealthiest slovak and world is a man in canada who happened to buy huge proxies which contain most of the world uranium. and how he deals only with heads of state. anyway, he paid for this extravaganza. and when we met the pope, came up, each one met the pope for a moment, shook hands, and then

the president, as the pope leaned over to me, he put his finger on my time. -- tie. he put his finger on my button, which i've gotten through the back door before they were freely available. and i was wearing and adam smith died. i didn't quite have the heart to explain that to them yet. with many chances to talk about it later. first, you not to going believe this but it's true. the pope's secretary took a shine to us, and the pope really like karen very much. and so he gave us an invitation, anytime were coming to rome, to write, or if we were there to call. at this time on a scheduled he would say as. so we must of been there for morning mass at least five times with them.

and visit with him afterwards, and then maybe 10 times for lunch or dinner. it was just amazing. about mass, first. mass is in a very small chapel, very neat and orderly and nicely done but nothing special. in the vatican right near his bedroom. he's kneeling there long before mass, and the small group comes in, only about 16 places i think of something like that. and he is hunched over his previous and he is honestly just in another world. he's conversing with god, in the presence of god, and he's just wrapped. i've heard the word but i've never seen it. then when he speaks in the

prayers of the mass, you know, most of us would say our father who art in heaven, we would recite it. he didn't. he was talking, our father, who art in heaven, just talking to them. i mean, it was just very, very powerful. i mean, the man was a saint. it's not going to take canonization to make him a saint. it was real scary. it's wonderful to have faith. you just don't have too many of them because they are hard to live with. [laughter] every family that has a saint, there's at least two martyrs. but is just impressive to see. i learned very early that he loved jokes. so i tried to come armed with

jokes every time. him the one he enjoyed best was, we were talking about poland after it'd been free for two or three years, and then this started in about 1991, just a place for you, and how in this current elected there were 39 political parties behind her position, one of them called the beer drinkers party. pope raised his eyes to heaven, and the joke goes that there's only one solution to the polish crisis, the pope was supposed to have said, and he says, our lady, the great patron of pola

poland, as long as you do front of the troops, the poles never lost. status from kirkus occupation -- turkey occupation. also the war against the let the winds come the war against the russians. -- lithuanians. our lady would appear with all the prophets and all the angels and all the saints, and he said, how did he put? there are only two practical solutions, he said. and and possible, only one that will work. the impossible solution is if

the poles ever learn to cooperate with each other and solve the crisis. and he said the realistic solution is if our lady would you suddenly come and solve the crisis. [laughter] he kind of liked that. i won't bore you with the other, but what i meant to the last chapter of the book is about him, and i was lucky enough to be invited to go over to the funeral, and i was lucky enough to go with the president, but karl rove told me, they got on the plane, kind of a post-world war ii vintage, no heating in it, no -- bring very warm clothing. he didn't say it was going to be air force one. but anyway, it got us through

the gates fast and spent some time at the pope's -- as he was laid out and then to be present for the next day when the book of the gospels was out in front of st. peter's, a beautiful day but overcast, and the wind was sharp and would blow the pages in front of us. and when people were calling o out, spontaneous shots, i forget how many million people there were, but i think there might have been five. people called it the largest crowd in human history. no crime, no nothing your anyway, well, i'll leave it at that. a bunch of other things, and

i'll stop. after i got my masters degree at harvard in 1965, actually and 6618, but -- in 6618, but i was teaching at stanford, my first position, and i was only 30 years old myself. the students were practically the same age, and in 1965, the antiwar movement really see his berkeley across the bay, and but it was beginning at stanford. we had, by the second year, a young man elected president who

became one of the great leaders of the young radicals, really a remarkable young man. but some in the group were really very radical left. by that i mean, i think i have a little evidence that there was some connection with moscow and cuba, but i don't want to insist on that because i don't have enough evidence. but there was some bad stuff in the background. nonetheless, i felt it was necessary to march with my students, who were protesting the draft. well, anyway, i thought i had to stand with them, and i did. hubert humphrey visit the campus, vice president, dear friend of my father bought, just

a really great guy, i thought. i liked him a lot as a politician and so on. he just gave an awful talk, offhand in a way that was, he didn't realize how sensitive and acute and on edge everybody was. and a bunch of us on the faculty encouraged people to wear protest bandages if they wanted to, but not to rise and walk out or cause a ruckus. i remember thinking, i would love if albert -- i would like to love my country and justice at the same time. and then hubert spoke very badly, and then there was a huge riot outside as he left, and those of us on the faculty just went down in theyes of all the

others, and it was, then i went, i was invited by the university of the new york for a new excremental campus to come join there. there was only one student who took elections as not a fraud and was able to take part, and he voted for gene mccarthy. all the other elections are a burger wall, nothing to do with them. one of the first arguments was males could use any bathroom they wanted of their choice, openness. i mean, we spent most of the first quarter having demonstrations and sit ins, and endless discussions. so if i had imagined myself radical as i did, i was soon

disabused about how crazy things could get. and all in the name of well meant slogans. good point but really just twisted to the bizarre. in any case, while at stanford i helped organize a california movement to put eugene mccarthy on the ballot. january 1, candlelight parties all over california, and then in june, bobby kennedy came to campus, or came to california and i got a call from his go to guy, legendary editor of the national tennessean. john called me and said, bob is coming to california tomorrow. you will arrive tonight, he wants to see first thing in the

morning. he just announced he was running for president, and he said he wants to see you first in california, the first one to see. and he wanted to identify with the youth vote. that's what it came down to. but he said he decided to run. he decided to run after reading an article i wrote in the magazine, national magazine, the methodist which comes out of nashville, tennessee. it was an article on the secular saint, especially the book the plague, and about how even atheists are so often moved by compassion and fellow feeling, the need to improve the world.

what do they lack the churches, these atheists of our generation, loving the poor and all the rest. there's a fundamental christianization, even of atheism going on in our culture. and you can't explain it by paganism. and bobby was so wonderful. it was my favorite elliptical leader for many, many years. he was so young and vigorous, and brave and courageous. the more "the new republic" talked about the bad bobby and anime bobby and the dirty bobby, the better i like him. the better most of the catholic population i knew like him. they wanted a tough s.o.b. they thought some heads had to be knocked.

it's one kind of democrat, and there's another kind of democrat. i come from a family where my grandfather was a minor and my other grandfather was a minor for a while, and then is wife came from a village near his family. in fact, the same village in slovakia, and in slovakia to have a general store, i didn't discover this until the 1970s. they started in america general store, meat market, general store, and my grandfather was the butcher. my grandmother ran the place. business heads in slovak families tended to be the women, and they manage the money. but anyway, i was always conscious of, my father insisted on it, too, identify with, don't forget where you came from. identify with the people at the bottom. these are your people.

i can't get away from that. and i love it. i'm glad that's true. but that's what bobby kennedy stood for, for me. so i called gene mccarthy, the hardest thing ever to do, instead i'm sorry i'm going to drop my support and i'm going to support bobby. i think, i said i think he is the only man who can get the vote in the cities i know of both blacks and whites next. he can bring them together as nobody else will. and he said i'm sorry you think that, but it was true. be as integral to oregon to campaign for him, and it did come and they lost. first time a kennedy lost an election. in later years they gave me an award, the republicans favor democrats, providing i never worked for a republican. every time your for democratic,

they -- [laughter] anyway, and then i did some things with bobby in california the next week, and he'd explained to me in that first visit it all depended on mayor daley who won the election in illinois. and he said, mayor daley doesn't trust me that. and he told me, you in california, we can talk. i said bobby, we've got to win california. and i guess you don't a million people that's what i need you. anyway, the most impressive thing was he called me, his staff called me the night is going down to los angeles, where he was shot, to ask hi me to gon a private plane with him, to go with the family down there. so as i perceive them a chance i would have been with him, as they walked into the hotel. i don't know literally what would have been done, but i said

i was, i really want to go but we just had our second baby, they're young, and i have been a way a lot. i thought i'd better not. i better stay home. and anyway, i don't have much time to say what changed me from left to right, except it was an accumulation of little things. it wasn't like being knocked off a horse on the way to damascus. it was having supported the war on poverty in the beginning, and then moving to new york, moved to long island and worked in new york. watching crime rise by 600%. and watching families break up, and schools deteriorate. this isn't what i wanted. this isn't what i voted for. and then finding a now. people wouldn't even talk about it. like that. i was very anti-vietnam war, and

went around the country preaching against it, talking against it, but then i didn't mean done we should let, you know, the people who fled vietnam parish on the seas or be raped and robbed by pirates, so desperately trying to find haven. i didn't mean that. i didn't want that, and i didn't mean we should be so humiliated and are leaving of it not. it's one thing to get a girl pregnant, which you ought not to do, but it's an even worse thing to abandon her. it just seemed to me. and i thought we were back in our getting in and we're worse in our getting out. it was very human living pig. and i thought from this, i knew a little bit about the russians. if you're a slovak you have to know about the russians.

and i knew a little bit about the chinese by this time, that, boy, are they going to learn from this, about how weak the united states is. so i promised myself that i would work for a stronger defense anymore aggressive foreign policy, a liberty foreign policy, and human rights in foreign policy. this is why gene picked me up for this, and so on. at all this together, i didn't do this. i didn't ask to go to geneva. i didn't try for the job, whatever. it was all, it was done for me. so it's been a blast and i've enjoyed it. the only thing that went wrong in and the whole thing was karen broke our contract i was supposed to die first, not her. i thought that was really mean and cruel.

and deserved by me, but anyway, so that's it. thanks very much. [applause] >> glad to do questions and answers. >> do you have time for questions? >> idea if you do. >> this could go in so many directions, and i'm just spinning through a few of them. i will start, would love it if other people have questions for michael, that i would like to start with a sort of nuts and bolts question, because the women anyway in the room are all writers or bloggers or people interested in fact kind of media. your work is so stunning in every sense and prolific, how prolific you've been. do you have any invites for

people about how you discipline yourself as a writer? anything from which our hours working, what your schedule is, or when you read, or anything that you would want to impart that way, i'm sure would be appreciated by everyone here. >> yes. even when i was, well, when i was in the seminary for 12 years and i was trying to become a priest. i thought that was the best i could serve people. poor people, too, more. and entertained the thought of being a missionary asked my brother later did come a couple years later did. but by the end i was getting terrible headaches and i i just knew i should not become a priest. anyway, so after a really bad and deep struggle, i left inside did what every red-blooded american would do, i got itself my first non-black suit, my

father bought for me, and took $100 from him and took off to new york, hitchhiking. i could take some stories about coal trucks in pennsylvania, wow. but anyway, i found an apartment for like $10 a week, the old leo files but it was an old house built to receive german immigrants in the 1890s. still going strong. well, going week. i had a room that was quite small, but there's nothing else for $10 a week. to open the address i did put my feet up on the bed. but the one that didn't like about them every time you came in and turned on the light switch, the cockroaches would scurvy. i didn't like it on my bedspread or on my pillow. those worried me.

okay, so my plan was to my plan was not to work. my plan was not to go to work and they figured with $100 it would take, had about 30 left, give me three weeks to work and i would try to sell a book review or an article, or whatever, whoever would take me, didn't matter. when you're young you just want to publish. i did it in a church bulletin. you just got to write. i met 10,000 people in my first month in new york who said they were writers. there's only one difference between them and writers. the writers wrote. by rote, i mean my regiment was six hours of writing every day. and if i missed three hours on this day, make it up. it's all the difference in the world. you have to create your own style, your own voice.

style is not the right word. your own voice, and almost unmistakably you. it takes 500,000 words at least, so get started. get them done. get them out of your system. it's like a second it takes takes 100,000 mistakes to learn the language. well, just are speaking. don't worry about the mistakes. just plunge in and take chances. that's the way to learn. well, okay, i was lucky and i've started a novel in the seminary, and i still had and i decided to finish that in us lucky enough to sell it in june, and then through old friends, got a job writing speeches for an aspiring congressmen, which that led to my writing a new frontier speech, because he wanted to invite kennedy to come and impress him with his speech. kennedy was, before kennedy was nominated, i sent a copy of it

to the speechwriting headquarters at harvard. what was the poets named was in charge of -- archibald. anyway, all the staff, all the people of the congressmen, the leader, anyway, hated it. this is nonsense. this may be for harvard people at my folks want meet. bread, and redmeat. and then after jackie the new frontier speech, it wasn't mine but happened to be on the same wavelength, what a brilliant speech, what a great political guy. lesson number one in politics is there's nothing like success. you know, it's just, all of a sudden you're a genius.

nothing has changed. nothing has changed. >> so you just have to keep writing. i love stories like the story of "to kill a mockingbird." if i remember correctly, was bought in the 13th submission. i mean, somebody told me, michael, every time you send a manuscript in, have an envelope at home a dressed to the next editor. so when it comes back, i used to mail them back. you might look at it, but put it in an angle and send it to the next one. editors love new stuff. they need new stuff but if they've been covering something else, it's not right for them now. there are all kinds of reasons editors can't take this one. so don't be too discouraged. you know, you have to know the

world is in your favor if you want to be a writer. everybody has to have -- if they can introduce new writers, new ideas the better off their magazine is. so you will have a good shot at it. i didn't have an agent or anything but i just sent them. i later hired an agent just wouldn't make mistakes, but i resent that they took money out. [laughter] >> i just want to add a comment to that, because what michael is saying is so contradictory to what you all the time in a post-internet age, which is the importance of branding and that you should stake out your tiny corner of commentary our research, and stick to it. so you can be expert on obamacare 2012, or whatever it might be.

it's not that isn't important, but what michael is saying, you don't earn a brand until you've been through all the experiments first and tried without ever giving up to get everything you write. i do not a single successful writer who has to follow some version of that kind of device, so thank you. >> as a follow-up, i would like to know all of it more of a your editing process, your self editing process. you described that you will write, write, write, but the words on the page and not at it as you're going but at some point you do have to become the article. how do you analyze what you've written and assess what's good and what's not? what is a process like for you? >> this book got to that 880

pages before we started cutting it. so it's down to about a third of its length. i would think every chapter in the nl east in the 15th draft. keep going over and over and over. when you finish it i always at least you like shakespeare. it's really great. then in the cold light of day i read it and i hated. how could you let yourself say that? because when you finish it you are still in the fire of the vision and you're not attending, what it's like to see black marks on white paper, which is pretty grim, if you think about it. so the temple to address i gave i was pretty sure was in the 43rd draft. so i really worked my butt off for rewriting. that's why this, that's why you need all those hours.

i'm happy if i get 10 hours riding the i love going out to the beach for this reason. we happen to have nears -- we happen to have homes knew each other in delaware. work for three or four hours, get up, take a walk, come back for two or three hours, take a walk, make dinner. i do it best when i'm alone. up to a point. and then go out for a walk, and then come back and try to get three hours in before retiring. but this is partly being central european. sit on your butt and work. you don't have to be successful. you don't have to -- life is hard, and also being a child of the depression, don't expect things. you have to make them happen. look, if somebody accept something after 13 tries, while

mac, that's a wonderful. who cares about the 12th? and also about being branded, here's what happened to me. i read in college, i think as a sophomore or so, to writers that said the same thing. if you want to write really well about metaphysics and about ethics, don't expect to before you're 50, because it takes express but you don't have enough experience. things don't work out the way you planned into and get to live through that a lot. that's what i love to talk to jean, because she knew ways things could go wrong that i didn't. if i did anything important. i always asked jean a. i didn't always accept her as right, but i wouldn't do anything unless i had a reason, reason with her about it, and so i looked at

what, the first man who said this, i said okay, what did aristotle do until he got to be 50? he went in the army. he learned about botany, plans, he collected the constitutions of every city, state he could find. ..

as i saw the most important things in life are those people are the kitchen table, the state theater neighborhood, the happiness of your marriage. if that is, it doesn't matter about the rest. no matter how good other things are, if that that it's painful. there are people who live like that. i call them the family people. they just want to get out and go their way. make a choice. but what's kept us alive for a thousand years, the only thing that function was the family. couldn't trust the state. sometimes he couldn't trust the church. the family kept you going. the irish and many others the same. the family was important. this led me to feel bad for the neighborhood people in the cities. they didn't understand anymore

and not regarding the text you're. and i wrote a book on sports. the quarterback capital of the world. especially the holy trinity, basketball and football in america, for american. and a year of research and that was wonderful. my wife wanted me -- he promised to clean the basement. but this is research, watching football games. [laughter] it was such a happy year. i had to go out on field visits to watch michigan, ohio state, auburn, alabama. then it was great.

so i tried to do a little bit in every field. you do suffer because you don't have a clear profile for writing one day. on the other hand, you're interested in religion, somewhat reduced td, it is city, like this. the more profiles you create in a way, the more helpful it is. that's not you. that's just an aspect of life. if you want to be wise about human life, understand how it works, the more pizzazz ask you this through, the better off you are a thing. i can tell more stories. >> all right. i ask.

so to be brazenly reductionist about a, what would you say so far has been your most lasting contribution? which is a spirit of democratic capitalism? >> i know it's a crowded field. what i want to do is create a philosophy of american culture or theology of american culture. a little of both. you can understand america unless you understand it's religious. what's the word i want? dynamism i guess. the thing that gave me the energy. the very notion is jewish and christian concept. it wasn't great.

it wasn't middle eastern. it wasn't roaming. going back to the heroes, that going back judaism has always been hard. a new vision, a new kind of human living. better, more peaceful, more just, more loving. christianity picked up the same thing. our father who art in heaven, how would a tightening. a kingdom come -- it's not here yet. the day will be done. so it's the job of christians to make the world a better place.

even our atheists have inherited that. it doesn't come from anything and it's not altogether inherent i. it's all that she had, isn't it from a scientific point of view? anyway, i sort of like the physical question. for example, washington -- oss but not her into a life -- washington's i.t. of god because they didn't have that people asked for it. i prepare to think he was just like everybody says. there is a god out there. my daughter was an atheist in high school she announced. when she went to do, she decided she couldn't be in a few years

because she didn't understand why she was being told that the world with holiday cheer and everybody was making her study so hard. there has to be reasoned somewhere. so she decided -- what did she call herself? and act as the years. she decided there was region of nationality and intelligence being. but what difference did it make? in her life, what difference did it make? that's kind of liaison. there's a guy, but he doesn't have a given life. he doesn't really care about human to human life. you cannot say that about washington. you cannot say that. he praised too often. he is too much trust in providence. he acknowledges the wrong province. like when benedict arnold plans

to betray the forward, which with giveaway to hudson river, which would allow the king to separate the north from the south, which would be the easy way, one house at a time. it is rarely fatal. these plants were discovered in american patrol, not even searching for them obviously, that having to be at the right pace at the right time to pick up these guys. and their packages and they found the play of that surrender and we're in a rut it. that artillery turned out to be extremely valuable when washington as commander-in-chief of the continental army. going out to boston or bunker hill, which was occupied by the

british already. this can insert card overland to arrive at boston placed upon a hill to the british fleet was in a defenseless position overnight. how did that happen? the british are supposed to attack two days prior. the americans said four ammunitions in their pocket beach. so they nearly couldn't hold down. and in addition, ammunitions coming out from halifax was intercepted by the american vessel. washington's thinking providence for each one of these things. they have the canon, they got all the way across massachusetts just in the neck of time. the british attack wouldn't be launched when it was supposed to be launched.

fresh ammunition came. whose side is god on? the argument against this is its god. he is not on anybody's side. the great ps but he was a great believer in god. he took ship under his own money to persuade the french revolution not to have been in god because you will lose any way of defending human rights. so tom paine wrote one of his letters, what were they called? summer soldiers from the winter, some they might that. twice a week -- biweekly to

pamphlet that he put out. there was no way god who created man for his friendship could support that robber. -- the robert king, churched third in trying to keep his -- keep the citizens of the king away from the right, the two rights of englishmen and that's the way john adams taught the americans to conceive of anything. they weren't revolting. they were insisting that their rate be recognized. this is very important for another reason, which is if they had had out in the cry of rebellion, how could they get the assistance of the french king who we call it a rebellion his own.

so anyway, washington collected books on providence ever since he was young. his mother gave him one at age 11. you have to reduce weight class to handle these things. i had chewing gum and i got royally bring out. because these quotes show up later in his work. he collected the best sermons on providence and he published a message book. well, you know, that fatality is in american. now, we are losing it. we are giving up, turning away from it. i don't know, i kind of stand with washington.

this nation was its constitution cannot be maintained without a certain metaphysical view in a certain moral set of virtues. just cannot. it will collapse. i never wanted to believe that, but i must say it seems more and more credible to me. i didn't want to believe it because i didn't want to argue for god for the sake of the united states. you understand what i mean? that would take on an instrument that would be just wrong. but the older i get, the more persuaded i am by washington argument. hamilton, adams, on may the same point. you can't understand the united states if you don't understand that hope. my father used to put it in terms. michael, don't ever bet against

the new york yankees, notre dame for the united states of america. for most of my life, the yankees -- the united states is teetering. >> i think we have another question. >> so your commander and commitment to securing each euro, discovery of cells is so compelling and inspiring. as you navigate from left or right, how did you -- i expect you are quite honest and open about that, the process of making that is meant.

[inaudible] government it can be quite difficult. how were you able to -- >> here's the way the concept as i felt as ambassador. i was there to represent the president of the united states, not me and my ideas. so sometimes they had to adapt to send decisions that i wouldn't have done that way. but that's not my job. the difficulty for a country come a bit nation like ours as with so many can benefit treaties and so forth that people have should be able to trust us and we can't be fully in this way in that way cheat sheet with when. so i understand the president's job is different from mine. he's got to set a course in mind

the things he told other people. so i didn't find that to be -- i think are most important theologian dr. jonathan byrd. a lot people think that. there are many times when the society is better than the person, i'd love to plan president reagan and tipper wrote neil -- tip o'neill have a furious argument, maybe back and forth from the white house to the house floor and on the tv news. and then they get together for a cup of coffee until wonderful irish jokes back and forth. i just thought it was just terrific that they had a public role to play. the each played it, but they also knew it was the port to be

friends. it's got bitter. in the middle of my life, people want to vote parties are not part of the principle. they are made up of coalitions of different engines. we should be parties to principle. now we have been more or less that way. it is better than the parties represent the coalitions. you can always find a way in which you can get five people on one side arguing. that's all you need. that would shift to the other side. something with a little bit raw, the other side. to me a much more humane politics. it was pretty ugly time, too. politics is a means test. it's about power and you have to have this iron stomach to do it. effect to do things personally you wouldn't do.

sometimes at the state asks of you is much better than what you would do personally. it's a morally higher out. we be more selfish and more narrowminded just laughed to herself. other times, nothing will work without the personal integrity. consider your in-flight net headway on these rickety old fighter planes they had pre-world war ii. they are down to three or four minutes of fuel before they have to chime back. just then the clouds break to make that the cream of the japanese navy line, other planes are attacking the american island, islands with the american desire. what do you do? just turn around and go home? which are life and children 181

were we just cannot let this opportunity pass and go down and make your diet or that your torpedoes go or whatever you do and pray you get home. a lot of those guys died, but they had to make a decision on the spot like that. and that's character. what you do with the surprise, what you do on the spot, what people can count on you to do, that's her. virtue now, virtues and, >> michael, thank you. it's a perfect note to end on. thank you for a most memorable lunch. let's hear it for michael novak. [applause] >> for more information, visit the author's website, michael

novak.at. >> there's several types of bullying the lifeless to engage in. her favorite is racial bullying. it's their favorite game. the reason is the lefts philosophy is based almost solely and completely at this point on the idea they stand a perfect nice groups. everything they do is to stand up on behalf of some victimized minority. blacks, jewish, women, what that means is if we oppose policies by necessity the logic is we hate blacks, jewish and women. that is the philosophy they tried out.

>> joining us on the tv to preview its upcoming new book, best-selling author, bill bryson, "one summer: america, 1927" is the name of the book. by 1927? >> i stumbled into it really. i'd always been fascinated either side that charles lindbergh through the atlantic in the same summer, the summer of 1927. so i had in mind that made it an interesting summer. they were happening in exact parallel. i thought maybe with interesting to try and do a dual biography of these two guys with the

narrative arts meeting in december 1927. that was my starting point. when i began looking into what else happened, i found that those were only two parts of a much greater whole. there's all kinds of other stuff at them. you had the great mississippi flood, which was the greatest natural disaster in american history. you had al capone, the beginning of the end of al capone and indeed a prohibition of information that prohibition is coming to an end. they started building not rushmore. calvin coolidge astounded the world by announcing he didn't want to run for reelection of president. he could've won in a landslide and decided he didn't want to do it, for reasons that are still mystifying. harris would come in the summer he had the mad idea to build an american city in amazonia.

just kind of one thing after another. lots and lots going on. the whole nature of the book changed to just not looking at these two iconic pictures, but looking at all this stuff happening. the first talking picture was filmed the same summer. this fanatic could not affect dvd, a great deal of which changed the world, you know, change the way we perceive popular entertainment and so on. it was consequential, but also really come the really interesting and lively one. >> is there any reason all these events happened? >> they just happen. that's what kind of interesting about it. sometimes these things just happen. by a march that was in reason. they weren't there because they had to have been in december 1927.

mostly they just happened and. there were connections. the recent lindbergh was able to fly first to europe was because of the same storm system that caused the flooding in the midwest, the great mississippi flood. the same weather system at all of the other aviators can down in the doric and allowed charles lindbergh to fly in getaway ahead of the others. if it hadn't been for the weather system that was causing havoc over the middle part of the country, almost certainly richard would've got off the been the first to cross the ocean. certainly change the history great deal. >> said there is a contest going on quick >> i didn't realize this. i'd always assumed that charles lindbergh got in his head that he would fly the ocean and caught a plane in today.

it wasn't anything as simple as that. there is a prize named after french hotel i just loved aviation. he became excited by aviation in the first world war without the dog bites and everything. he put up a very generous for the first person, the team of people who could fly between new york and paris in either direction. there are lots and lots of teams that were all getting ready to fly in takeoff that summer. every single one of them is better prepared that are funded and charles lynn hurt. lindbergh with his kids, just a 25-year-old kid coming out of the midwest who flies in to new york with one engine, no navigator, no copilot. essentially just a flying gas tank.

everybody sativa suicide if he got away first he would crash in the water. of course he was the one who beat him. because his plane was so much that there is never so much less necessary in order to get it ready to take off. >> you open the book talking about a fire in new york city and how people would gather for event. >> it's amazing. this happened again and again. i don't let anybody could it is what it was, but this impulse by people to gather in huge crowds for almost every thing. the hotel in new york, which was under construction in the nearly finished. there was a lot of wooden scaffolding around the top of it because they were finishing off the very summit of the building and somehow caught fire in all the wooden scaffolding when not. as a say in the book, it is just this great played.

within a couple of hours, a crowd estimated 100,000 people had spontaneously turned out. imagine what it would take to get 100,000 people in new york to gather what place now. it have to be something quite dramatic. lots and lots of other things. you had shipwreck kelley, the great flood polesitter who went up on a hotel in your work, new jersey and tens of thousands of people turn to watch that. it's just strange. it was much less in the way of entertaining and other diversions. there is something going on. great crowds who turn out for it. >> bill bryson, on the macro level, calvin coolidge now rending, al capone, was there some pain happening on the macro level as well?

>> the economy was very interesting because the economy was booming and it was overheating if any. this is really a matter of herbert hoover in particular who was worried that he was overheating. he was right to be worried about it. the federal reserve, for central bank errors and central bankers scrape the, france and germany all night and had a secret meeting in long island not far from ireland or it had taken off a couple weeks earlier. they decided very, very mistakenly to cut the interest rate everywhere, which is what will they let to the crash the following year and the great depression that followed after that. >> that is just a quick preview

of bill bryson's new but coming up october 2013, "one summer: america, 1927" you are watching booktv on c-span 2. >> here's a look at works being published this week:

>> for the 2013 roosevelt greeted festival, discusses her book up to. this is about half an hour and start on booktv