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History is just this froth of artifact production that has appeared in the last ten to fifteen thousand years. It spread across the planet very quickly. But that mind in man just goes back and back into the darkness.

Histories are to educate so that we understand better for ourselves and for motivation.

There's a preoccupation with memory and the operation of memory and a rather rapacious interest in history.

The study of history requires investigation, imagination, empathy, and respect. Reverence just doesn't enter into it.

There's something quite exciting when you have a history with somebody and you see them do new and different things.

I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.

The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.

The same contingencies of time and space that force a statesman or soldier to make decisions, impel the historian, though with less urgency, to make up his mind.

History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.

History is present in all my novels. And whether I am directly talking about the sociological moment or just immersing my character in the environment, I am very aware of it.