Chronology is not destiny

“The question is, shall it or shall it not be linear history. I've always thought a kaleidoscopic view might be an interesting heresey. Shake…

— Penelope Lively

The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever!... What at such a time are histories, chronologies, traditions, and all…

— Henry David Thoreau

History is philosophy teaching by example and also by warning.

— Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

The idiot, the Indian, the child and unschooled farmer's boy stand nearer to the light by which nature is to be read, than the…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am strongly of the opinion that chronology is very important. The great arc of time is what children are wired for.

— Simon Schama

History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which…

— Thomas Kuhn

I have insane curiosity as to what happened in all these events. I will never know. I'm not a researcher. I don't possess that…

— James Ellroy

Particularly, the actors, to have analyzed the script in great detail from the point of view of their specific character. So that they have…

— Christopher Nolan

“Have you noticed how just trying to impose any sort of chronology on events makes it seem as though a lot of time has…

— James Hamilton-Paterson

Of course the chronology of the books is a bit back- to - front, and books usually come out before movies. But happily, these…

— Helen Fielding

“On the whole I try to keep Modesty and Willie in timeless settings, which is why I avoid all the latest slang and in-words.…

— Peter O'Donnell

Sometimes indirect style and varying chronology is great, but quite often I've seen it be just something that gets in the way. It turns…

— Alice Mattison

“All that we call sacred history attests that the birth of a poet is the principal event in chronology.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

My chronology is terrible. [Work with William Shawn] must have some ago. It was after he was fired by Newhouse. After New - when…

— Nat Hentoff

By definition it uses and plays and delights in time. It delights in the interlacing of chronologies and the consequences of that interlacing. And…

— Chang-Rae Lee