Writing History Quotes

The things you're passionate about and interested in, get experience with them by going deep on projects. I would encourage science projects, plays. Pursue science, math, writing, history - the 21st century demands a lot of cross-disciplinary thinking. ~ Megan Smith

The contemporary historian never writes such a true history as the historian of a later generation. ~ Agatha Christie

During the first formative centuries of its existence, Christianity was separated from and indeed antagonistic to the state, with which it only later became involved. From the lifetime of its founder, Islam was the state, and the identity of religion and government is indelibly stamped on the memories and awareness of the faithful from their own sacred writings, history, and experience. ~ Bernard Lewis

It is like writing history with lightning and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true. ~ Woodrow Wilson

By definition he [the writer] cannot put himself today in the service of those who make history; he is at the service of those who suffer it ~ Albert Camus

I had a long writing history behind me before I got into anything in film. It comprehended science fiction, it comprehended historical, it comprehended, you know, just about everything that you can think of. ~ William Monahan

From this time everything was copulated. Acetic, formic, butyric, margaric, &c., acids, alkaloids, ethers, amides, anilides, all became copulated bodies. So that to make acetanilide, for example, they no longer employed acetic acid and aniline, but they re-copulated a copulated oxalic acid with a copulated ammonia. I am inventing nothing-altering nothing. Is it my fault if, when writing history, I appear to be composing a romance? ~ Auguste Laurent

Sometimes the biggest disasters aren't noticed at all - no one's around to write horror stories. ~ Vernor Vinge

I feel like I'm too busy writing history to read it. ~ Kanye West

I'm actually writing history. It isn't what you'd call big history. I don't write about presidents and generals ... I write about the man who was ranching, the man who was mining, the man who was opening up the country. ~ Louis L'Amour

I am writing history, and I can't be there. ~ Jay Mark D. Saga-ad

I would say that my ideal of writing history is to give the reader vicarious experience. You're born in one particular century at a particular time, and the only experience you can have directly is of the place you live and the time you live in. History is a way of giving you experience that you would otherwise be cut off from. ~ Edmund S. Morgan

Some may say [journal keeping] is a great deal of trouble. But we should not call anything trouble which brings to pass good. I consider that portion of my life which has been spent in keeping journals and writing history to have been very profitably spent. - If there was no other motive in view [except] to have the privilege of reading over our journals and for our children to read, it would pay for the time spent in writing it. ~ Wilford Woodruff

Unlike modern military codes, ancient texts are almost never purposely misleading, purposely scrambled ... indeed, literacy was so uncommon until classical times that the very writing of a message sufficed to keep it from almost everybody. ~ E. J. W. Barber

When you think about archaeology, archaeology is the only field that allows us to tell the story of 99 percent of our history prior to 3,000 B.C. and writing. ~ Sarah Parcak

Sin writes histories, goodness is silent. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Oh, Val," said Father. "All you have to do is live your life, and everyone around you will be happier."
"No greatness, then."
"Val," said Mother, "goodness trumps greatness any day."
"Not in the history books," said Valentine.
"Then the wrong people are writing history, aren't they?" said Father. ~ Orson Scott Card

Movies are like writing history with lightning. ~ Woodrow Wilson

The writing of history reflects the interests, predilections, and even prejudices of a given generation. ~ John Hope Franklin

One of the rules of history is that people do not write about what is too obvious to mention. And so the information, having never been recorded, is now lost for ever. ~ Michael Bywater

I like reading history, and actually most authors enjoy the research part because it is, after all, easier than writing. ~ Ken Follett

Advice to Persons About to Write History - Don't. ~ Lord Acton

A traitor only becomes one if their plot is discovered. The imposition of guilt means nothing to those who feign loyalty. More skilled conspirators wield treason as a clinical tool of regime change and political expediency. Then, with their own hand writing history, such traitors may wear the clothes of patriots. ~ Stewart Stafford

Spend less time on social media and more time reading and writing. ~ James Gary Vineyard

[While writing history], I've kept the most interesting company imaginable with people long gone. Some I've come to know better than many I know in real life, since in real life we don't get to read other people's mail. ~ David McCullough

I could not do what I do without the kindness, consideration, resourcefulness and work of librarians, particularly in public libraries. What started me writing history happened because of some curiosity that I had about some photographs I'd seen in the Library of Congress. ~ David McCullough

The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far - the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We're obviously in a very upward cycle right now, and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not. ~ Elon Musk

What is the essence of the art of writing? Part One: Have something to say. Part Two: Say it well. ~ Edward Abbey

I believe that I have not been fair to you and that, as a result, I must have led you around in circles and hurt you deeply.

In doing so, however, I have led myself around in circles and hurt myself just as deeply. I say this not as an excuse or a means of self-justification but because it is true. If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. So please try not to hate me. I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed being than you realize. Which is precisely why I do not want you to hate me. Because if you were to do that, I would really go to pieces. I can't do what you can do: I can't slip inside my shell and wait for things to pass. I don't know for a fact that you are really like that, but sometimes you give me that impression. I often envy that in you, which may be why I led you around in circles so much.

This may be an over-analytical way of looking at things. Don't you agree? The therapy they perform here is certainly not over-analytical, but when you are under treatment for several months the way I am here, like it or not, you become more or less analytical. "This was caused by that, and that means this, because of which such-and-such."

Like that. I can't tell whether this kind of analysis is trying to simplify the world or complicate it.

In any case, I myself feel that I am far closer to recovery than I once was, and people here tell me this is true. This is the first time in a long whil ~ Haruki Murakami

The embryo of my second novel, Bobby's Diner, came to life because of my husband's ex-wives. Let's just say, they inspired the writing. ~ Susan Wingate

I already feel a bit annoyed at myself for writing screenplays. It's a bit, I don't know, model-singer-dancer-actress that went to a posh school. There's something too weirdly predictable about it. ~ Emily Mortimer

Isaiah said, "I'll need access to Richter's phone for one hour. This is his replacement." "Does it work?" "No. It was impossible for Mark to replicate his contact list, apps, texts, call history. Safer play to swap it for a nonfunctioning phone. It'll power up and display a black screen. What I'm asking isn't easy. I need you to swap his current phone out for this one. Then you're going to have to hand off his phone to my contact at the club. He'll find you, so don't worry about that. Then you have to entertain Richter for an hour while my guy builds the clone. Then you have to switch his real phone back for the fake. ~ Blake Crouch

But should Bortz have exfoliated the mere words so lushly, into such unnatural roses, under which whose red, scented dusk, dark history slithered unseen? ~ Thomas Pynchon

It would be amazing to play Sylvia Plath. She was so dark, and what came out of her writing was troubled and fierce. The dimensions, levels, layers and levels would be incredible to take on. ~ Evangeline Lilly

History is the angle at which realities meet. ~ Don DeLillo

It occurred to me that for a long time I tried not to write about my own backyard and my home. I suppose I was selfishly keeping it to my self. And in doing so, I was never able to get out into this incredible wilderness area - by the way, I live right at the edge of the most incredible wilderness area probably in the northern hemisphere. ~ Tim Cahill

On the other hand, nothing would have been so miserable as savage man, dazzled by enlightenment, tormented by passions, and reasoning about a state different from his own. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I like writing songs. I like the camarderie of the and. I like touring. I love playing bass. And then there's free beer. ~ Keanu Reeves

A written constitution is needed to protect values AGAINST prevailing wisdom. ~ Antonin Scalia

Reading and writing and the preservation of language and its forms and the kind of eloquence and the kind of beauty which the language is capable of is terribly important to the human beings because this is connected to thought. ~ Iris Murdoch

I wasn't put on this earth to amass money or personal wealth. I was put on this earth to play guitar and write songs. ~ Noel Gallagher

Those who ignore the destructive potential of new technologies can do so only because they ignore history . Pogroms are as old as Christendom , but without railways, the telegraph and poison gas there could have been no Holocaust. (..) Scientific fundamentalism claim that science is the disinterested pursuit of the truth. But to represent science in this way is to disregard the human needs science serves. Among us science serves two needs: for hope and censorship. Today only science supports the myth of progress. If people cling to the hope of progress, it is not so much from genuine belief as from fear of what may come if they give it up. ~ John Gray

It is impossible to capture the essence of love in writing, only its symptoms remain, the erotic absorption, the huge disparity between the times together and the times apart, the sense of being excluded. ~ Edna O'Brien

I remember that when I got to NYU, everyone was writing scripts. But I was 18 at the time, and when you write a script, so much of it is about what you pull from life, and this sounds sort of cheesy, but I felt like I didn't have enough life experience at that point to write a movie. ~ Todd Phillips

First organizing it on paper isn't just academic, it's an applied prerequisite for manifestation. ~ T.F. Hodge

This is the city that taught me how to write all of these cool songs. Yeah, you guys definitely need a royalty. ~ Katy Perry

A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar. ~ Stephen King

I started in theater and I wanted to write plays, but I never really found an original voice as a playwright. ~ Atom Egoyan

You know, it's absolutely connected to The Mollusk in that, it's what we're writing after The Mollusk. A lot of this stuff reminds me of things on The Mollusk. ~ Gene Ween

Writing is a struggle against silence. ~ Carlos Fuentes

Cooking up ideas and crafting good plot into a unique, natural, stirring taste is like cooking patiently in a charcoal stove. ~ Angelica Hopes

The story of the Khazar Empire, as it slowly emerges from the past, begins to look like the most cruel hoax which history has ever perpetrated. ~ Arthur Koestler

If you want to be a writer, I have two pieces of advice. One is to be a reader. I think that's one of the most important parts of learning to write. The other piece of advice is 'Just do it!' Don't think about it, don't agonize, sit down and write. ~ S.E. Hinton

My writing routine is this: 1) Have a job. I can't do shit if I don't know where the rent is coming from--I tried the thing where you just declare yourself a writer and live on unemployment/savings/the kindness of strangers but that resulted in clinical depression. (interview with Amy Guth, Bigmouth Indeed Strikes Again) ~ Rachel Cline

Storytelling is the art of unfolding knowledge in a way that makes each piece contribute to a larger truth. ~ Philip Gerard

I'm very, very open to experimenting with different people and trying to find different methods of writing and making music. ~ Paul Weller

There are very few solid family films. A lot of the writing is awful. ~ Chevy Chase

In political affairs illusions are usually the product of a failure to appreciate change; but such failure-usually a necessary and perhaps salutary part of human affairs-becomes, when the change is very fast, not a stabilizing conservatism but a form of deception resembling lunacy. ~ Laurence Lafore

When it comes to giving advice, never do so unless you've first received a request in writing, signed by a lawyer. ~ Marshall B. Rosenberg

The language of the street is always strong. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

First-person narrators can't die, so as long as we keep telling the story of our own lives we're safe. Ha bloody fucking Ha. ~ Pat Barker

Great ambition and conquest without contribution is without significance. What will your contribution be? How will history remember you? ~ William Hundert - The Emperors Club

The war is ending, for the first time in the history of relations between Moscow and Grozny, and the era of peace is starting. ~ Aslan Maskhadov

You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God's adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by. ~ Mark Twain

Write. Remember, people may keep you (or me) from being a published author but no one can stop you from being a writer. All you have to do is write. And keep writing. While you're working at a career, while you're raising children, while you're trout fishing
keep writing! No one can stop you but you. ~ Katherine Neville

I can write anywhere. I actually wrote more than I ever did when I had small children. My children were never a hindrance. ~ Jamaica Kincaid

I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf. ~ Patti Smith