There's only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, but there's no road leading from the ridiculous to the sublime.

What is a historian, anyway? It is someone who uses facts to record the development of humanity.

After closely examining my conscience, I venture to state that in my historical novels I intended the content to be just as modern and up-to-date as in the contemporary ones.

Ever since my youth it has disturbed me that of the literary works that survived their own epoch, so many dealt with historical rather than contemporary subjects.

An action doesn't have to be wrong just because it is not logical. It doesn't have to be right just because it has its logic.

An author who sets about to depict events of the past that have run their course is suspected of wishing to avoid the problems of the present day, of being, in other words, a reactionary.

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