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I am not nostalgic for the past.

I don't have a great nostalgia for the past.

The past always seems somehow more golden, more serious, than the present. We tend to forget the partisanship of yesteryear, preferring to re-imagine our history as a sure and steady march toward greatness.

We must admit that history is enjoyable to a large extent because it enables us to pass judgement on the past.

From the very beginning, history wasn't content simply to be nostalgic fairytales; it wanted to make you think.

I am not nostalgic about things. When you have a kind of improvement, I am not nostalgic about the past.

I try personally not to be nostalgic.

I think my attitudes about the past are very traditional. You can't ignore history; you can't escape it even if you want to. You might as well know where you come from, and you might as well know that everything has been done in some shape or form.

Good history is a question of survival. Without any past, we will deprive ourselves of the defining impression of our being.

I'm just fascinated by the past. You know, both by the possibilities it holds and by the complete tyranny of it, the way it sort of keeps you in this stranglehold and makes you want things that you no longer have and you can never get back.