“Because some things that seem unimportant now can change the course of human history -- and I am a student of human history.”

“If you believe that humans are animals, there can be no such thing as the history of humanity, only the lives of particular humans. If we speak of the history of the species at all, it is only to signify the unknowable sum of these lives. As with other animals, some lives are happy, others wretched. None has a meaning that lies beyond itself.”

“Because the human history is the history of shoes. The history of places where we ever tread and stand.”

“History is the queen of the humanities. It teaches wisdom and humility, and it tells us how things change through time.”

“Over the course of human history, many items have briefly flourished as means of exchange, only to be demonetarized. Now, we have demonetarized money.”

“Things spoken can be forgotten and forgiven, but the written word has the power to change the course of history, to alter our lives.”