Natasha Trethewey Quotes

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

History is of all subjects the one which is most engaged with people's perceptions of themselves, identity, politics, all those things which shape the modern world.

I don't think that I can tell any story better than the story of my own country, than the stories of my own countrymen.

History is very much bound up in family experience.

I think history is collective memories. In writing, I'm using my own memory, and I'm using my collective memory.

Teaching the history of the British Empire links in with that of the world: for better and for worse, the Empire made us what we are, forming our national identity. A country that does not understand its own history is unlikely to respect that of others.

I subscribe to William Faulkner's' view that history is not just about what we were before but who we are now.

A country, a style or an epoch are interesting only for the idea behind them.

Most of us get our history through story.

For a country is not merely a piece of earth; it is, above all, a compendium of social, cultural, and historical factors which begin to acquire sense and order through the process of writing.

I've built my homeland, I've even founded my state - in my language.

The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or woman.

A nation is a work of art and a work of time.

The history of this country is told by showing people who have contributed to it.

A nation is a historical group of men of recognizable cohesion, held together by a common enemy.

We learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed, but to know who we are.

History is a heavy thing everywhere.

It is important to recognize that folklore is not simply a way of obtaining available date about identity for social scientists; it is actually one of the principal means by which an individual and a group discovers or establishes his or its identity.

Culture is the way for a country to know itself.

National identity does not figure in the Tamil way of thinking.

Without understanding your history, you can't get a perspective about the present.

I was always pretty interested in my history. Not just the history of the Caribbean, the history of my people, but all walks of life.

Without knowing your own history, you are doomed to repeat it.

Getting its history wrong is part of being a nation.

You can't know who you are, as a nation or a people, unless you know where you've been.