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Portrait of David Starkey

David Starkey

(1945) Historian

114 quotes in 515 categories

David Starkey talks about his own upbringing, from a council house to being an avid reader of Dickens. He also criticizes modern institutions, saying teachers lecture badly, historians lose context, and the constitution gives the prime minister too much power.

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David Starkey is a historian, best known for Elizabeth: the struggle for the throne.

Quick Facts About David Starkey

Born: January 3, 1945
Profession: Historian
Notable works: Elizabeth: the struggle for the throne

About David Starkey

He was the only child of Quaker parents, attended Kendal Grammar School, and earned a scholarship to read history at Cambridge, where he focused on Tudor history and wrote a thesis on King Henry VIII’s household. He later lectured in history at the London School of Economics until 1998 and has written several books about the Tudors.

Quotes by David Starkey

I'm not a delicate man.

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I hate niceness.

Hate

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I never snack apart from fruit such as Cox's apples.

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I've always been very good at obliterating the undesirable.

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Unhappy marriages are big box office.

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I've always challenged authority.

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Only bad teachers lecture at a tutorial.

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I am passionately committed to state education.

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Successful immigrants assimilate or become bi-cultural.

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Writing is a real activity conducted in real time.

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The idea that it's only the young or people who've grown up with a technology who can appreciate it. Complete nonsense!

Nonsense

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Freedom of speech wasn't won by being nice, it has been won by struggle with religion.

Being

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The whole history of the 20th century can be written in an utterly fascinating way.

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We have this extraordinarily unbalanced constitution, in which we have an elected dictatorship of the prime minister.

Constitution

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Television is a performance, but apps actually reflect thought processes.

Apps

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I mean, really, compared to a senior civil servant, I'm very modestly paid!

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What I love doing is creating a room, with attractive paintings and colours and furnishings - very much my mother.

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Walking is central to my relaxation because when I'm writing I'm stationary for seven hours at a time.

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I'm not a completely envy-free zone - I envy 25-year-old men with magnificent bodies - but when I look at my colleagues…

Colleagues

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I've got no problem with getting history wrong for a purpose - Shakespeare often got things wrong for a reason. But it's…

Arrogance

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I think my cheerfulness keeps my writing from sinking into the depths of melancholy, while the darker side keeps in check any…

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This is going to sound shocking, but being born with two club feet was quite a good beginning. If you pull through…

Beginning

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If all the people of this country, black and white alike, are to enter fully into our national story, as I desperately…

Black and white

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I spent a lot of time in hospitals as a child with these dreadful calliper things, and in push-chairs and God knows…

Ability

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Academics aren't paid very much, but as a single gay man I was never badly off. You don't have kids. You don't…

Gay

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I organise my work in the form of a daily diary. Each chapter is strictly chronological but is also monothematic - say,…

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The mere mention of domestic service brings some people out in spots of outrage, but there is a crying need for relatively…

Coming home

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I admire writers who have the tenacity to write a blog, and I'm told by everyone that it's an important element in…

Accomplishment

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I tend to be a bit of a proselytiser for the importance of royal courts, but all politics - in fact every…

Human

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It's one of the great mysteries to me how anybody who has ever believed in socialism can conceivably vote for Blair or…

Government

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Out of the chaos of post-Roman Dark Age Britain, the English had created the world's first nation-state: One king, one country, one…

Administration

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At the top, successful blacks, like David Lammy and Diane Abbot, have merged effortlessly into what continues to be a largely white…

Credibility

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If you look at comparative figures, the last two episodes of 'Six Wives of Henry VIII' were watched by 4m. Graham Norton,…

Comedy

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Churchill may have made some horrendous mistakes - Gallipoli, for one - but he had a sense of the profundity and integrity…

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To footnote properly takes time.

Footnote

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High malice is almost inherent in the profession of historian.

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The reign of Henry VIII is the axis around which England turns.

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I've always had a naughty streak.

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I enjoy cooking, but stick to modern dishes.

Cooking

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Human beings enjoy the myth of romance.

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David Starkey by topic

History (14) Writing (10)