Quotes About History

You can't take our people from Africa and put us in a diaspora and spread us all over the world. And we survived slavery - and we can't pass a test? ... And you're gonna tell me we can't learn how to write? Have you lost your mind? We are survivors. That's all we do is survive.

I want to paint Montreal as a rather fantastic city, which it was, because nobody knows today what it was like. And I'm one of the last survivors, or rapidly becoming one.

I've met many Holocaust survivors who find the era infinitely compelling because they have this deep hunger to understand how it all could possibly have happened.

Phil is a child of Holocaust survivors.

I invented the psychological histories and the relationship between Jack and Susan Stanton. I didn't know anything about the Clintons. I don't know more about the Clintons' marriage than you do.

The fantasy I've always had is that somehow I could move back in time. I would like to be there when Susan B. Anthony was dying, or someone like that. I would say to her, 'You won't believe what's going to happen.' And then I would tell her.

Republicans were historically the party ever-expanding freedom to disenfranchised minorities, from newly liberated slaves to giving women the right to vote. Susan B. Anthony was a Republican.

I saw no African people in the printed and illustrated Sunday school lessons. I began to suspect at this early age that someone had distorted the image of my people. My long search for the true history of African people the world over began.

I haven't checked, but I highly suspect that chickens evolved from an egg-laying ancestor, which would mean that there were, in fact, eggs before there were chickens. Genius.

I don't recall exactly when I first began reading about Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery, but I suspect that it was in fourth grade.

No movie has ever been able to provide a catharsis for the Holocaust, and I suspect none will ever be able to provide one for 9/11. Such subjects overwhelm art.

It's said that most Americans under the age of 30 reflexively dislike movies made before 1970, especially those that were shot in black and white. If this is so, I suspect it's because such films portray an America that no longer exists.

If there is any hope that we in America might one day overcome our own history of genocide, slavery, discrimination, and oppression and create a justice system that is truly a source of international pride rather than shame, I suspect Rwanda may have as much to teach us about what is required as any tour of a Norwegian prison.

When we write about Auschwitz, we must know that Auschwitz, in a certain sense at least, suspended literature. One can only write a black novel about Auschwitz or - you should excuse the expression - a cheap serial, which begins in Auschwitz and is still not over.

I might be the first fighter who has ever been suspended after retirement.

'Rainwater' was particularly special because it was a complete departure from the suspense novels. It's set in the Great Depression and based on an incident that occurred when my dad was a boy.

Ideologists of all kinds find a strange sort of comfort in the madness of the crowd; it confirms them in their suspicion that history, far from being made by the great mass of individuals - as Marx averred - is rather unmade by a single massive individual, a collective Other, who stands in stark contrast to you and he.

Paper currency has hitherto been regarded with suspicion, as insecure.

From depicting the past, so goes the suspicion, it is a short step to glorifying the past.

Yes, it is frustrating to listen to those who foment fear, suspicion and intolerance, who don't know the mistakes of history, and are in the midst of repeating them. Have faith that the character of the American people as a whole is such that, in the end, we will choose not to drink this brand of soiled milk.

I like books like 'The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher,' where the investigation of a crime becomes a way into an exploration of the society where the crime took place.

Whatever final judgment awaits 'Bush v. Gore' in the annals of history, I am certain that the good work and good faith of the U.S. federal judiciary as a whole will continue to sustain public confidence at a level never beyond repair.

For most of America's history, people typically aspired to acquire 'a competency' rather than great riches. A competency meant the ability to comfortably sustain a household without depending on others. 'Competence' also meant being capable and reliable. The American Dream was that people who worked hard and capably could support their families.

A clear lesson of history is that a 'sine qua non' for sustained economic recovery following a financial crisis is a thoroughgoing repair of the financial system.