Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history.

This is what I would have done if I had to have a real job: I would have been a history teacher.

I did a book in 1996 an overview of black history. In that process I became more aware of a lot of the black inventors of the 19th century.

Our liberal New York/Washington-based media would never in a million years put Liberal Godfather Ted Kennedy on the spot about his clan's bad behavior to whose lurid history he himself has contributed so much.

My generation of bossy confident baby-boom women were something brand new in history. Our energy and assertiveness weren't created by Betty Friedan unknown before her 1963 book or by Gloria Steinem whose political activism as even the Lifetime profile admitted did not begin until 1969.

American policy seems to be wed to a perpetual state of war. Why? History shows that the world will always be in flux or turmoil with different peoples competing for visibility and power. The U.S. cannot fix the fate of every nation.

All objects all phases of culture are alive. They have voices. They speak of their history and interrelatedness. And they are all talking at once!

But when one believes that you've been appointed by God for a particular mission in history you have to be very careful about that how you speak about that. Where is the self-reflection in that? Where is the humility in that?

I'm a person that just likes to speak the truth and I don't understand why in America it's such a big deal that we won't read the Koran and we won't look at history.

Is there in all the history of human folly a greater fool than a clergymen in politics?

There are times in history where a particular doctrine becomes a symbol of a greater problem.

I think the Democrats are catering to them but you know in the entire history of the United States of America there has never been a judge who has been refused a vote when there was a majority of Senators willing to vote for his confirmation never in history.

No country in the history of the world has ever contributed more to humankind and accomplished more for its people in so brief a period of time as Israel has done since its relatively recent rebirth in 1948.

It is the great sadness of our species that we have not found a way to eliminate the conflict and to eliminate violence as a device to resolve our conflicts throughout the entire history of the human race.

The oppressed peoples can liberate themselves only through struggle. This is a simple and clear truth confirmed by history.

The history of man is the history of crimes and history can repeat. So information is a defence. Through this we can build we must build a defence against repetition.

My major allegiance has been to storytelling not to history.

If you look at U.S. history through religious history there is very much a motif that shows the importance religion has played in the U.S. We're a very religious country and it affects the way we look at various political issues.

It's a struggle but that's why we exist so that another generation of Lesbians of color will not have to invent themselves or their history all over again.

I think people in general have neglected to learn about history.

You had to be aware that I saw that photography was a mere episode in the history of the optical projection and when the chemicals ended meaning the picture was fixed by chemicals we were in a new era.

I want to write a book which is the history of comedy.

I'm not keen on history being tampered with... to any extent.

In many ways history is marked as 'before' and 'after' Rosa Parks. She sat down in order that we all might stand up and the walls of segregation came down.