History is present in all my novels. And whether I am directly talking about the sociological moment or just immersing my character in the environment, I am very aware of it.

In the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary.

You can’t build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know that when a lot of frightened people are running around with edged weaponry, there are deaths. Stupid deaths, usually. I’m not writing ‚The A-Team‘ – if there’s a fight going on, people will get hurt. Not letting this happen would be a betrayal.

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.

As I got older, my pops tried to keep me involved with the culture by telling me the stories of the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, how he came to America, and about our family back home, because all that side of my family – my aunties, grandparents – is in Africa.

It’s probably not an accident that the films that I care about happen to be about issues that matter to me, stories that I want to tell.

All cartoon characters and fables must be exaggeration, caricatures. It is the very nature of fantasy and fable.

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

I was a little girl in World War II and I’m used to being freed by Americans.

My production and songwriting and the environment around those vocals are not inspired by R&B at all.

I am completely fascinated by the differences and comparisons between real life and fairy tales because we’re raised as little girls to think that we’re a princess and that Prince Charming is going to sweep us off our feet.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Animation offers a medium of story telling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world.

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.

Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.

To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.

George Orwell is half journalist, half fiction writer. I’m 100 percent fiction writer… I don’t want to write messages. I want to write good stories. I think of myself as a political person, but I don’t state my political messages to anybody.

How fortunate I was to be alive and a lawyer when, for the first time in United States history, it became possible to urge, successfully, before legislatures and courts, the equal-citizenship stature of women and men as a fundamental constitutional principle.

My passion is bringing storylines around and constructing a full body of work rather than just a 16-bar verse.

I’m not searching for hard news; I’m not a journalist, but I’m interested in pushing to boundaries of where we can do the kind of stories that we want to do. I mean, it’s a big world and CNN has made it a lot bigger and they haven’t flinched.

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.

Whatever final judgment awaits ‚Bush v. Gore‘ in the annals of history, I am certain that the good work and good faith of the U.S. federal judiciary as a whole will continue to sustain public confidence at a level never beyond repair.

I don’t think the relationship between novels and realities are one to one. Of course novels play different roles. It’s essentially just a long narrative form. What you use that long narrative form for can be very different.

I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.

Social struggles have been taking place throughout millennia, since human beings, by resorting to wars, were able to take hold of a surplus production to satisfy the essential needs of life.

If my life was a movie, no one would believe it.

Society therefore is as ancient as the world.

I have always enjoyed watching my songs make people cry.

I hope I didn’t bore you too much with my life story.

In a novel you have to resist the urge to tell everything.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

I’m sticking to the script, I’m putting that organic feeling back in the game.

Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.

One of the things that I tell beginning writers is this: If you describe a landscape, or a cityscape, or a seascape, always be sure to put a human figure somewhere in the scene. Why? Because readers are human beings, mostly interested in human beings. People are humanists. Most of them are humanists, that is.

It’s better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost.

Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by experts.

If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.

Let’s teach kids, at the kindergarten level, what the contributions of people of color were to building the United States of America.

The kings of Spain brought us the conquistadores and masters, whose footprints remained in the circular land grants assigned to those searching for gold in the sands of rivers, an abusive and shameful form of exploitation, traces of which can be noted from the air in many places around the country.

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

The most talented do not always end up as celebrities, and those with less talent often do. Upsets are written into our history and occur around us every day.

Well, Apple invented the PC as we know it, and then it invented the graphical user interface as we know it eight years later (with the introduction of the Mac). But then, the company had a decade in which it took a nap.

What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?

This was life in the ’30s. This is the way it was with children in the South. I tried to make it general, the kind of things that might happen to any child.

I do know that throughout history, all paper money has eventually come back to its true value, which is zero.

Human beings need stories, and we’re looking for them in all kinds of places; whether it’s television, whether it’s comic books or movies, radio plays, whatever form, people are hungry for stories.

In one thousand years of Russia’s existence, its first popular national election ever to be held occurred in June 1991. Six days later, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed in Moscow!

All History is current; all injustice continues on some level, somewhere in the world.

The Bible is full of warnings about false prophets and false messiahs. These satanically inspired people have appeared in almost every generation of history.

An unimaginative person can neither be reverent or kind.

I’d read up on the history of our country and I’d become fascinated with the story of the Alamo. To me it represented the fight for freedom, not just in America, but in all countries.

England is a nation of shopkeepers.

Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man. They die up to a point.

The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin.

And they that rule in England, in stately conclaves met, alas, alas for England they have no graves as yet.

I intend to inspire people with my story: motivate young people that grew up like myself, or even not like myself. Just, you know, go through the human experience.