One of the things about the arts that is so important is that in the arts you discover the only way to learn how to do it is by doing it. You can't write by reading a book about it. The only way to learn how to write a book is to sit down and try to write a book

The talent, including the talent for history - and I do think there are people who just have a talent for it, the way you have a talent for public speaking or music or whatever - it shouldn't be allowed to lie dormant. It should be brought alive.

History isn't just what happened, but what happened to whom and why and what would have been different if the cast of characters had been different.

They must be cool but determined...he threatened instant death to any man who showed cowardice.

First of all, you can make the argument that there's no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past.

However little television you watch, watch less.

Just imagine if in his inaugural address John F. Kennedy had said, 'Ask not what your country can, you know, do for you, but what you can, like, do for your country actually.