Michael Korda Quotes

I once interviewed David Herbert Donald, the Lincoln historian, and we talked about how one deals with the secondary sources and the previous biographies. He said something which kept coming back to me as I worked on Cleopatra, which was: 'There's no further new material; there are only new questions.'

I am a historian. I do a lot of research, and I try to get it right.

So this was the big secret historians keep to themselves: historical research is wildly seductive and fun. There's a thrill in the process of digging, then piecing together details like a puzzle.

As a historian, you can only go as far as the evidence will take you.

History is as much an art as a science.

An historian should yield himself to his subject, become immersed in the place and period of his choice, standing apart from it now and then for a fresh view.

In the course of writing one historical book or another, it has happened that I could hardly restrain myself from simply copying entire documents. Indeed, I sometimes sank down among the documents and said to myself, I can't improve on these.

As a biographer, I try to uncover the adventures and personalities behind each character I research. Once my character and I have reached an understanding, then I begin the detective work reading old books, old letters, old newspapers, and visiting the places where my subject lived. Often I turn up surprises, and of course, I pass them on.

Every historian discloses a new horizon.

History is only conjecture, and the best historians try to do it as accurately as they can. They try to accurately reassemble the facts and then put them down on paper.

As an author of narrative history, I read a lot of history books.

But history is neither watchmaking nor cabinet construction. It is an endeavor toward better understanding.

I believe that historians and analysts of historical events need the authority of facts supplied by living witnesses to the events, which they make their subject.

I'm a historian in my own mind.

As a historian, I love every little detail, but whole long passages about wood paneling and journeys on horseback and every stop at every inn had to go out the window. I decided the history in the books should be like spice in a soup - a little went a long way. Like cilantro.

I study history in order to give an interpretation.

What is a historian, anyway? It is someone who uses facts to record the development of humanity.

We're uncomfortable about considering history as a science. It's classified as a social science, which is considered not quite scientific.

The task of understanding the past is neverending.

Historians are not good at hypothetical questions.

Writing history takes a great deal of imagination. I don’t mean making things up, but you have to be able to transport yourself to another time.

History written today is much more accurate than history written in the 18th century.

It is impossible to write ancient history because we do not have enough sources, and impossible to write modern history because we have far too many.

Confronted by an unknowable, historians demand evidence, witnesses, corroboration.

I write to learn the flow of history.