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

I have always made an effort to render every detail of my reality with the greatest accuracy; but I have never paid attention to whether my presentation of historical facts was an exact one.

Asking the author of historical novels to teach you about history is like expecting the composer of a melody to provide answers about radio transmission.

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

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.

It is only the strong who are strengthened by suffering; the weak are made weaker.

Both the historian and the novelist view history as the struggle of a tiny minority, able and determined to make judgments, which is up against a vast and densely packed majority of the blind, who are led by their instincts and unable to think for themselves.