“History is not a procession of illustrious people. It's about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about.”

“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.”

“There are people in the world for whom "coming along" is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive.”

“Tell me, he said, "What is this thing about time? Why is it better to be late than early? People are always saying, we must wait, we must wait. what are they waiting for?""Well […] I guess people wait in order to make sure of what they feel.""And when you have waited—-has it made you sure?”

“There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves. People are not, for example, terribly anxious to be equal (equal, after all, to what and to whom?) but they love the idea of being superior.”

“It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves and what they identify with themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be.”

“American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.”