“You see, when you're middle class, you have to live with the fact that history will ignore you. You have to live with the fact that history can never champion your causes and that history will never feel sorry for you. It is the price that is paid for day-to-day comfort and silence. And because of this price, all happinesses are sterile; all sadnesses go unpitied.”

“So the price of careless rapture is a twisted history chronicled by envy. You were too busy being. And you are too busy now. You couldn't spare the time to note down a few facts: how the sun and silence poured into the big room with the yellow curtains; how everything was never-ending and expendable. ”

“If history teaches us anything at all, it is that sooner or later, wherever you go or whatever you do, the sad, brutal fact remains that you're almost bound to run into somebody or something that really needs killin'.”

“If somebody tells you ‘History will never forgive you,’ just laugh at him! Because when the history comes, you won’t be here! The threat of history never forgives you is a useless threat!”

“Oh, Val," said Father. "All you have to do is live your life, and everyone around you will be happier.""No greatness, then.""Val," said Mother, "goodness trumps greatness any day.""Not in the history books," said Valentine."Then the wrong people are writing history, aren't they?" said Father.”

“The people who criticize me are ignorant of what history is, because the very fact that the student of history chooses what to include and what not to include in his work, is proof that history is never objective.”