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History resembles a guest list in that sense of the invited and the gatecrashers: the people for whom we have been waiting, and those whose presence takes us unawares.

History is one of those marvelous and necessary illusions we have to deal with. It's one of the ways of dealing with our world with impossible generalities which we couldn't live without.

What we normally define as history doesn't interest me. It's a constraint.

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

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

I think history is collective memories. In writing, I'm using my own memory, and I'm using my collective memory.

History repeats itself, and that's one of the things that's wrong with history.

History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.

I think if we don't understand history, if we don't keep referring back to it, we become complacent. And complacency, as we all know, it leads to repeating history.

History is information. Memory is part of your identity.