Many people nowadays live in a series of interiors...disconnected from each other. On foot everything stays connected, for while walking one occupies the spaces between those interiors in the same way one occupies those interiors. One lives in the wh...
Cities have always offered anonymity, variety, and conjunction, qualities best basked in by walking: one does not have to go into the bakery or the fortune-teller's, only to know that one might. A city always contains more than any inhabitant can kno...
In great cities, spaces as well as places are designed and built: walking, witnessing, being in public, are as much part of the design and purpose as is being inside to eat, sleep, make shoes or love or music. The word citizen has to do with cities, ...
The truth was, neither the Central Intelligence Agency nor any of the other official and unofficial U.S. intelligence organizations have ever been some kind of all-seeing, all-knowing, global illuminati. For starters, we never hand that kind of fundi...
Perhaps the most important thing I learned was about democracy, that democracy is not our government, our constitution, our legal structure. Too often they are enemies of democracy.
A great gift would be a cheap pen, mounted on a wooden plaque, with the accompanying label that reads, “This is the pen that was first used to write down these words. This is history. This happened. Now, go write your own history. But use another p...
It was an odd situation. For a century and a half, men got rid of their own hair, which was perfectly comfortable, and instead covered their heads with something foreign and uncomfortable. Very often it was actually their own hair made into a wig. Pe...
Vitamin B proved to be not one vitamin but several, which is why we have B1, B2, and so on. To add to the confusion, Vitamin K has nothing to do with an alphabetical sequence. It was called K because its Danish discoverer, Henrik Dam, dubbed it "koag...
The phaenomena afforded by trades, are a part of the history of nature, and therefore may both challenge the naturalist's curiosity and add to his knowledge, Nor will it suffice to justify learned men in the neglect and contempt of this part of natur...
Well, let's see. There's—of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there's never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a ...
Ace Rothstein: [talking about Don] The guy is history as far as I'm concerned. History. Phillip Green: You can't just fire him. Webb's his brother-in-law. He's County Commissioner. Ace Rothstein: So what? Everybody out here with cowboy boots is a fuc...
Carl Fogaty: [pointing a gun at the wounded Tom] You have anything to say before I blow your brains out, you miserable prick? Tom Stall: [gruff voice; as Joey Cusack] I should have killed you back in Philly. Carl Fogaty: [smiles] Yeah, Joey... you sh...
Seth: Who do you hate, Danny? Danny Vinyard: I hate anyone that isn't white Protestant. Seth: Why? Danny Vinyard: They're a burden to the advancement of the white race. Some of them are all right, I guess... Seth: None of 'em are fucking all right, D...
Lamont: [When Derek doesn't respond to his question, he laughs] Okay, I know your kind, right? Bad ass peckerwood with an attitude. Well, let me tell you something, man. You better watch your ass 'cause you're in the joint. You the nigger, not me.
Does that have to go in?” Lada asked. “What do you mean?” Wistala said, brought back to the dictation. “The battle. Betrayals. Incompetence, even cowardice. Boats falling, mud everywhere, blood running from balconies, carrion birds poking mar...
I neither oblige the belief of other person, nor overhastily subscribe mine own. Nor have I stood with others computing or collating years and chronologies, lest I should be vainly curious about the time and circumstance of things, whereof the substa...
TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will det...
I'm inspired by history, different periods.
I want to write for history, not for the moment.
In its history, Europe has committed so many massacres and horrors that it should bow its own head in shame.
America has always imported history.
