Paul Greenberg, where did you get the title "No Surprises"?

Where did you get your Pulitzer Prize? For what?

How long did you live in Pine Bluff, Arkansas?

What got you there in the first place?

Where's home originally?

Can you remember the very first time you ever met Bill Clinton?

You write about a time when you were at a birthday party with him in one of these columns. Do you remember when that was?

Was this, by the way, a private party?

And what was your relationship with Bill Clinton then? What did he think of you then?

But for hours, he talked about politics?

September 27th, 1980, best I can tell, from a column, `Slick Willie 'started.

Who's `we'?

You coined Slick Willie.

Can you remember when somebody nationally used that for the first time?

Did they get that from your editorials?

I counted tell me if I'm wrong 146 columns in this book.

How did you figure out which 146 to choose, and what's the purpose of the book?

I found the same phrase on two different pages in two different time frames. I'm going to go to page 22, and this is July 29th, 1992. And you wrote...

When did you start calling him `Hollow Man' that's another title for another column and why?

When did you start referring to the first lady, and why did you start referring to her, as `Miss Hillary'?

What do you think of her?

You're talking about down in Arkansas.

Why did you leave Pine Bluff, and where did you go?

Where did you go to college?

What happened there? Why didn't you get it?

What would have changed in your life had you been successful, do you think?

Whose idea was the book?

Did anything that you found among the columns surprise you?

Define your own personal political views, the best you can.

Now that's a good question, and it is one that I've asked myself. I don't think Bill Clinton is an anomaly. I think that he is very much a part of ourselves...

I think the first time they came, the Danes were surprised at finding this editor of the home state newspaper who shook his head sadly about...

Yes. I was I was editorial page editor then, and still am, of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. And the Danes seemed suspicious and skeptical about this...

I have been impressed by Howell Raines' willingness despite the fact that The New York Times certainly is a liberal organ in this country and agrees...

An Arky is a breed of Arkansan that might be associated with the kind of people who found themselves poor and disinherited during the middle of the...

I get the widest range of reactions. I get the irate caller who thinks that my newspaper really ought to be more supportive of a president who, after...

`Is Bill Clinton going to straighten up in his second term?' I get that question.

That's a good question. I'm not sure what it means. I don't think that he is going to change from his waffling or his mastery of equivocation.

I think his course has been general and I think it is predictable, but I am surprised by the number of people who are not surprised by it, who continue...

I think the reader of a book should have some knowledge of the author so that you know where the author is coming from, so that you can hear a person...

I was. I'm now a widower.

My wife, Caroline, died on June 15th of 1995.

I have two kids, Daniel and Ruth.

Yes, he did yeoman service. I cannot imagine this book taking shape without him, because all of these old clippings and editorials had just been thrown...

He's 30 now.

He works for the Arkansas Policy Foundation, a job he got after he came to Arkansas, briefly explored a race for Congress, and had come there from right...

Ruth is with CIO, Chief Information Officer Magazine, in Boston, Massachusetts. She went up to Brandeis as a college student, fell in love with that...

I like to listen to music and I like to read books.

Yes, but I would also be lost without "Carmen" and especially Patsy Cline.

I guess it's the Shreveport boy in me coming up. It brings back memories of my youth and driving around Louisiana and east Texas and listening to Patsy...

It was a great place to raise a family. It was a Southern city not too different from many Southern cities. Shreveport has a long and large element...

My dad was in several businesses, but always at the same location. He started off selling second hand shoes and fixing them; went on into the pawn business...

I've held them for so long it's hard for me to say exactly where they came from. I think that I've always been interested in the past, which may explain...

I think there is a consistency to Dale Bumpers' policy. I think I have always been particularly fond of Dale Bumpers when he loses patience with the...

I think Senator Bumpers would be surprised to hear you say that, but I think that there is some truth to it. I think many of our politicians from Arkansas...

Perhaps if you could order me up some bottled water, from Arkansas?

Yes. It's a very winning one, and I think David Pryor is one of the best mannered people I've ever met, if not the best mannered. He's a very winning...

He makes you feel as though you are the center of his attention, perhaps because you are. He treats everyone as a guest. He treats everyone as a human...

She's a scrapper, and I respect Betsey Wright.

She is a longtime aide to Governor Bill Clinton. She was his chief of staff for a time. She is great at rationalizing anything Bill Clinton will do....

I'm not privy to the president's inner counsels, but I suspect it's because she is hard to get along with, brisk, can be profane and doesn't have office...

Basic loyalty, probably. She strikes me as a loyal person.

I think that would be a good guess. I haven't gone through all of them; '79 would be close to the earliest.

Is that a reference to Bill Clinton?

Yes.

Yeah. The relationship between Bill Clinton and Orval Faubus was a fascinating one.

How far we have come that one has to ask, `Who is Orval Faubus?' I guess we have come in the right direction, because Orval Faubus was, at one, time...

That was after his leaving the governorship. He had married Elizabeth Westmoreland. Faubus had decided to start life anew in Houston. He told us he...

Those bets were made when Bill Clinton, according to the conventional wisdom, was sunk. They were made as the Republican gains in the mid term elections...

I would predict that he will be. Yes. I've got a couple of steak dinners riding on it.

I think we're very much interested in the instant. I don't think we're terribly concerned at this point in our history about the past about history...

I think it's very usual for the 1990s. I think it would have been unusual at a different period. In fact, if you go back and read the artifacts of the...

That would not surprise me in the least.

It's very hard for me to imagine or to depict Bill Clinton as uninterested in a political race, particularly the next one to come up. I think that long...

Back to at least 1978, or even 1976.

Right.

You know, I am not a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I feel that we will drift, just as we have drifted, essentially, during these past three...

Fornigate?

That came out in a conversation, I believe, with a columnist named Tony Snow, who was talking about these various personal scandals that have no interest...

I think that is the classic example of how Bill Clinton and much of the new class that we might identify with Bill Clinton acts in terms of commitment...

No. That's my publisher's doing. It's a very informal shot of Bill and Hillary Clinton, probably right after a joking moment.

Brassey's is the American wing of an old English publisher. It specializes in a number of political books and books about history. It's right here in...

It's always a pleasure to have a civilized conversation with you, Mr. Lamb.