Quotes About History

Anna remembers something Licinius said: that a story is a way of stretching time.

a book—is a resting place for the memories of people who have lived before. A way for the memory to stay fixed after the soul has traveled on.

Day after day, the tall Italian said, year after year, time wipes the old books from the world.

The war that killed your grandfather killed sixteen million others. One and a half million French boys alone, most of them younger than I was. Two million on the German side. March the dead in a single-file line, and for eleven days and eleven nights, they'd walk past our door.

Ninth-grade U.S. history: Not to hurt feelings but that chapter you assigned? That was all "Columbus is great," "The Indians sure loved Thanksgiving," "Let's brainwash everyone." I found way better stuff at the library

Twenty thousand days and nights in one place, each layered and trapped and folded on top of the last, the creases in her hands, the aches between her vertebrae. Embryo, seed coat, endosperm: What is a seed if not the purest kind of memory, a link to every generation that has gone before it?

Nearly every species that has ever lived has gone extinct, Laurette. No reason to think we humans will be any different!" Dr. Geffard pronounces this almost gleefully and pours wine into his glass, and she imagines his head as a cabinet filled with ten thousand little drawers.

Nearly every species that has ever lived has gone extinct, Laurette. No reason to think we humans will be any different!

You know how diamonds—how all crystals—grow, Laurette? By adding microscopic layers, a few thousand atoms every month, each atop the next. Millennia after millennia. That's how stories accumulate too. All the old stones accumulate stories. That little rock you're so curious about may have seen Alaric sack Rome; it may have glittered in the eyes of Pharaohs. Scythian queens might have danced all night wearing it. Wars might have been fought over it.

It was hard to live through the early 1940s in France and not have the war be the center from which the rest of your life spiraled.

That little rock you're so curious about may have seen Alaric sack Rome; it may have glittered in the eyes of Pharaohs. Scythian queens might have danced all night wearing it. Wars might have been fought over it.

The Goddess of History looked down to earth. Only through the hottest fires can purification be achieved.

Doesn't look like much, does he?" murmurs Frederick. "Hardly a couple of ounces of feathers and bones. But that bird can fly to Africa and back. Powered by bugs and worms and desire." The wagtail hops from twig to twig. Werner rubs his aching eyes. It's just a bird. "Ten thousand years ago," whispers Frederick, "they came through here in the millions. When this place was a garden, one endless garden from end to end.

It's 1940 and no one laughs at the Hitler Youth now.

Read a certain way, the Natural History is preposterous, full of erroneous assumptions and cast-off mythology. Read another way, it is a window into Roman understanding two millennia ago. Read another way, it is a tribute to wonder itself

Nearly every species that has ever lived has gone extinct, Laurette. No reason to think we humans will be any different!" Dr. Geffard pronounces

Anthony Doerr

When I dream, I dream I am in the museum.

Antiquity was invented to be the bread of librarians and schoolmasters.

Nearly every species that has ever lived has gone extinct

A portrait of the führer glowers over every classroom.

The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

Sabe a maior lição da história? A história é aquilo que os vitoriosos determinam. Eis a lição. Seja qual for o vencedor, ele é quem decide a história.

Sabes cuál es la lección más importante d ela historia? Que solo la escriben los vencedores. Esa es la lección. El que decide el rumbo de la historia es el que gana.