“The people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally.”

“In the Middle East today there are too many people consumed by political dreams and too few interested in practical plans. That is why, to paraphrase Winston Churchill's line about the Balkans, the region produces more history than it consumes.”

“People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.”

“History is a kind of introduction to more interesting people than we can possibly meet in our restricted lives”

“For God must have more important universal matters to attend to than keeping himself busy with us, people! God is not interested in local matters!”

“It's interesting that my neighbor Irv, who saw dogs so differently, knew all the kids and people on the block and could recite the family history of each house until about a decade ago. Now few of our neighbors can name more than a handful of people who live on the street. They have little to do with local government, and vote sporadically, at best. In the evenings and on weekends, they go their own ways. Their kids are repeatedly warned about talking to people they don't know.”