“But history is a faithless teller whose cruel recourse to hindsight makes fools of its actors.”

“But everyone's an expert with the virtue of hindsight . . . .”

“Life could be cruel enough these days without the truth making it worse.”

“Memory is a cruel mistress with whom we all must learn to dance.”

“Wars make history seem deceptively simple. They provide clear turning points, easy distinctions.: before and after, winner and loser, right and wrong. True history, the past, is not like that. It isn't flat or linear. It has no outline. It is slippery, like liquid; infinite and unknowable, like space. And it is changeable: just when you think you see a pattern, perspective shifts, an alternate version is proffered, a long-forgotten memory resurfaces.”

“Life is too short to read books whose cleverness makes them impenetrable. A good book should keep you awake at night, flickering through pages as you promise yourself just one more chapter; they shouldn't put you to sleep as you tackle a paragraph for the fifth time.”

“My thoughts swim. Back and forth, in and out, across the tides of history”