“History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us.”

“The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.”

“That's one of the central problems of history, isn't it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us.”

“Written history may, in the course of its narrative, use some of the laws established by the various sciences, but its own task remains that of relating the essential sequence of historical action and, qua history, to tell what happened, not why.”

“The unending quest of historians for understanding the past — that is, 'revisionism' — is what makes history vital and meaningful.”

“History is not a procession of illustrious people. It's about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about.”

“What would become of history, had we not a dependence on the veracity of the historian, according to the experience, what we have had of mankind?”

“It isn't what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it's what we say to ourselves about what happens.”

“The news isn't there to tell you what happened. It's there to tell you what it wants you to hear or what it thinks you want to hear.”

“History upon Terra tells us what horrors follow upon religious mandates of unlimited reproduction.”