Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I can't envisage stopping writing.
To begin impatiently is the worst mistake a writer can make
To begin impatiently is the worst mistake a writer can make.
I am not someone who believes I am going to find a historical scoop.
Alpacas are very endearing, and they all have very different personalities.
Politicians are often tempted to deploy history as a weapon against each other.
I expect the worst both from reviewers and sales and then, with any luck, I may be proved wrong.
Few things reveal more about political leaders and their systems than the manner of their downfall.
Some novelists want to give people in history a voice because they have been denied it in the past.
The duty of a historian is simply to understand and then convey that understanding, no more than that.
In my library/study/barn, there is a Ping-Pong table on which I can pile working books and spread maps.
The power of historical fiction for bad and for good can be immense in shaping consciousness of the past.
The reason that 'Stalingrad' took off was because it emphasized the influence of history on the individual.
Historical truth and the marketing needs of the movie and television industry remain fundamentally incompatible.
I feel slightly uneasy at the way historians are consulted as if history is going to repeat itself. It never does.
The majority of soldiers and officers of the Soviet Army and the allied armies treated the local population humanely.
The blurring of fact and fiction has great commercial potential, which is bound to be corrupting in historical terms.
Of course history is easily manipulated - though that makes it even more important for us to know what actually happened.
When I started to write, I realised that you need a bit of both: the overall context as well as the individual's experience.
When my first novel was published, I went in great excitement round bookshops in central London to see if they had stocked it.
A blend of fact and fiction has been used in various forms since the dawn of creative writing, starting with sagas and epic poems.
The British bombing of Caen beginning on D-Day in particular was stupid, counter-productive and above all very close to a war crime.
It takes me three or four years to research and write each book and the individual stories stay with you for a long time afterwards.
Every country has its own perspective on the Second World War. This is not surprising when experiences and memories are so different.
The greatest heroes of the Normandy battlefield were the unarmed medics, whom snipers often shot at despite their Red Cross armbands.
The punishment of shaving a woman's head had biblical origins. In Europe, the practice dated back to the Dark Ages with the Visigoths.
I think it's outrageous if a historian has a 'leading thought' because it means they will select their material according to their thesis
I think it's outrageous if a historian has a 'leading thought' because it means they will select their material according to their thesis.
I just love the days when you come out of the archives with half a dozen excellent descriptions or poignant accounts of personal experiences.
Restorers of paintings and pottery follow a code of conduct in their work to distinguish the original material from what they are adding later.
I joined the Army in 1965 and served with the 11th Hussars, which I loved. The regiment was so relaxed - a salute was more like a friendly wave.
When I was a child I had something called Perthes' Disease which meant I was on crutches, so I was bullied at school and all that sort of stuff.
I was planning to stay in the Army all my life, but I ended up being posted to a training camp in Wales and was so bored there, I wrote a novel.
I just write the sort of book that I would enjoy reading myself, a book that is both scholarly and recreates the experience of people at that time.
Counter-knowledge covers the propagation of false legends and conspiracy theories often used for political purposes or fundamentalist religious propaganda.
There are one or two very good women military historians who use imagination, great study and research; they can put themselves in the boots of the soldier.
I used to write in a room overlooking the valley from where I could see too much, whether checking the sheep and alpacas or seeing the trout rise on the lake.
What is terrifying is the ability, through mass brainwashing or propaganda, to change normal human instinct, which does not necessarily contain very much hatred.
The memory of the Second World War hangs over Europe, an inescapable and irresistible point of reference. Historical parallels are usually misleading and dangerous.
Entertainment history is now the main source of supposedly historical knowledge for more and more people, but 'histo-tainment' is superficial and lacks all context.
I get slightly obsessive about working in archives because you don't know what you're going to find. In fact, you don't know what you're looking for until you find it.
I was in Estonia when a professor asked me if I was aware that making any criticism of the Red Army during the war was now an imprisonable offence. I was quite shaken.
One has this image of the Soviet state and the Red Army as being extremely disciplined but in the first four months of 1945 their soldiers were completely out of control.
I think one of the great disasters (in military history) is the way that the Second World War has become the defining reference point for every crisis and every conflict.
I'm often reassured in a bizarre - perhaps perverse - way when I find in the archive stuff that contradicts what my assumptions have been. That's interesting and exciting.
If you smash a city when you're trying to capture it, you actually end up providing the perfect terrain for the defenders while blocking the access for your own armoured vehicles.
I believe passionately in preemptive pessimism, especially before a book comes out. I expect the worst both from reviewers and sales, and then, with any luck, I may be proved wrong.
Without an understanding of history, we are politically, culturally and socially impoverished. If we sacrifice history to economic pressures or to budget cuts, we will lose a part of who we are.
The great help of being in the Army is to understand why are the armies clever in what they describe as emotional intelligence, making soldiers come to terms with the death of comrades by certain rituals.
I have come across both inspiring teachers of history and deplorable ones over the years, so one cannot generalise, except perhaps to observe that the profession seems to encourage anti-militarist sentiments.