Saul David Quotes

My forebears were fantastically wealthy Armenians who came to England from India in the 19th century and did what foreign types do - they married into a penniless but well-bred local family.

We've all faced the charge that our novels are history lite, and to some extent, that's true. Yet for some, historical fiction is a way into reading history proper.

It is surely no coincidence that Napoleon's two greatest heroes were Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. In certain respects, he would outdo them both.

Historical facts are the vital framework around which non-fiction writers construct their narratives; they are, quite simply, indispensable.

Henry Kissinger is perhaps the best-known American statesman of the 20th century.

Given the gruesome fate of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family, and the fact that five of the previous 12 Romanov rulers were also murdered, it is easy to regard Russia's imperial dynasty as cursed.

I passed the 11-plus, but it was decided that I should take the Common Entrance exam to Monmouth School, the nearest independent. I was never entirely comfortable there, as they didn't have girls, and they played rugby instead of football.

Few remember that the battle of Rorke's Drift was fought on the same day that the British Army suffered its most humiliating defeat at nearby Isandlwana.

The first Romanov ruler was just 16 when he was crowned Tsar Michael I in Moscow in 1613, thus ending the 'Time of Troubles' sparked by Ivan the Terrible's death.

Ever since World War I, superior force is no longer measured in terms of men or horses, but in the means to wreak destruction.

There were about 30 children at one stage, running around like savages at a place called Callow Hill, near Monmouth, which was owned by my grandparents. They lived in the big house, but my dad had five brothers and a sister, and they all lived in various houses scattered on the hill.

said Yitzhak Rabin, addressing the first full meeting of the Israeli Cabinet since the crisis had begun on Sunday, 'I want to say that any information that leaks out today can end up costing lives. So I ask you not to behave normally regarding this issue.' In other words, speak to no one. An hour and a half earlier he had met with Yitzhak Navon, the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs

From 1801, Napoleon began an ambitious programme of civil reform to standardise law and justice, centralise education, introduce uniform weights and measures and a fully functioning internal market. That achievement alone makes him one of the giants of history.

History tells us that a general can move and feed an army as efficiently as he likes, but the real litmus test is the battlefield.

At school, there were more Davids than any other name: more than 20 of us cousins out of 40 pupils. When my older cousins moved on, the school had to close.

The people who read the history books tend to have a natural zeal and are alarmingly well-read.

By the time Napoleon abandoned his army to its fate in Poland - arriving back in Paris on 5 December - it numbered fewer than 10,000 effectives. It was a disaster from which he would never recover.

If I'm at a book signing, and someone decides to take me to task, it can make for quite a sticky moment.

Those who read the fiction assume that, because I'm also a historian, I know what I'm talking about.