“History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us.”

“What history is not biased? Show me a historian, a real historian who is not biased!...History is never objective.”

“That's one of the central problems of history, isn't it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us.”

“History was a series of decisions about what to tell and a series of accidents about what survived after telling. Not truth, but a historian could search for truth, and the search was as worthy as any other human activity.”

“The role of the Filipino historian must be the role of all historians. There is, of course, [Filipino history], but as rule, the role of the historian is to tell the truth-- in so far as documents are concerned.”

“my desire to ascribe responsibility might be more a reflection of my own cast of mind than a fair analysis of what happened, like the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us”