You can write a great book and be ignored. Literary history is full of classics that were under-appreciated in their own time.
At the age of fifteen he had bought off a twopenny stall in the market a duo-decimo book of recipes, gossip, and homilies, printed in 1605. His stepmother, able to read figures, had screamed at the sight of it when he had proudly brought it home. 160...
The history of art is the history of revivals.
The history of mankind is a history of war.
The history of liberty is a history of resistance.
In this respect, the history of science, like the history of all civilization, has gone through cycles.
History has been the history of warfare.
The history of the Franks becomes, therefore, the history of the Netherlands.
Black history is American history.
No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.
I think publishing's strength is also its weakness. It's got such a rich and celebrated history as an industry. For the most part, publishing people are incredibly creative, business is done based on the strength of relationships, and the product bei...
I am re-reading Henry James as a change from history. I began with Daisy Miller, and I've just finished Washington Square. What a brilliant, painful book.
'Britain's Royal Families' became my first published book, in 1989, from The Bodley Head, and the rest of the story is - dare I say it? - history!
In a certain way, novelists become unacknowledged historians, because we talk about small, tiny, little anonymous moments that won't necessarily make it into the history books.
I do have to say that I think that President Obama is the greatest President in the history of all of our Presidents, and that he can do no wrong in my book. So how's that for prejudice on the Democratic side?
The Bible is not just one book, but an entire library, with stories, songs, poetry, letters and history, as well as literature that might more obviously qualify as 'religious.'
I know that I'm already in the history books and that people are going to remember me as the prisoner of war and the fabricated stories, but you know, to me I was just another soldier over there doing my job.
My writing has to support more than my research habit, but I love to curl up with a book about some dusty corner of history.
The last three books are much more a case of a moment of history, what happened almost by accident or coincidence, like being in the same elevator or lifeboat.
It's unbelievable, there's a book out attacking Gore, when he's the most unfortunate loser in political history.
I love to read history books, which is where I get my ideas. I also read historical romance for pleasure.
