History Quote by Michael Dirda

“I once read that there are more biographical works about…” quote by Michael Dirda — Download Open image

“I once read that there are more biographical works about Napoleon Bonaparte than any other man in history.”

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Nearly all the writing of our time is likely to disappear in a hundred years. Certainly most readers - and nearly all critics -…

Michael Dirda

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I sometimes lie awake at night and try to imagine what would be the best period in history to spend one's seventy-odd years.

Michael Dirda

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To my mind, 'Dear Brutus' stands halfway between Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 'Into the Woods'. Like them,…

Michael Dirda

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The goal of a just society should be to provide satisfying work with a living wage to all its citizens.

Michael Dirda

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Most lyric poetry is about love, whether yearned after, fulfilled, or wistfully regretted; what isn't tends to consist of laments and cris du coeur…

Michael Dirda

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“Books, by their very nature and variety, help us grow in empathy for others, in tolerance and awareness. But they should increase our skepticism…

Michael Dirda

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My gift, if that's not too grandiose a term, is one for describing novels, biographies, and works of history in such a way that…

Michael Dirda

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Once we know the plot and its surprises, we can appreciate a book's artistry without the usual confusion and sap flow of emotion, content…

Michael Dirda

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My wife tells me I should check out 'Downton Abbey', but I gather that series might be almost too intense for my temperate nature.

Michael Dirda

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A reviewer's lot is not always an easy one. I can remember flogging myself to finish Harold Brodkey's 'The Runaway Soul' despite the novel's…

Michael Dirda

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I once read that in vaudeville, it was often the straight guy who got paid more than the comic because that's the tougher job.…

Michael Dirda

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From the late 19th to the early 20th century, the December issue of almost any general-interest magazine regularly featured a holiday horror or two.

Michael Dirda

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More History quotes

Histories never conclude; they just pause their prose. Their stories are, if they are truthful, untidy affairs, resistant to windings-up and sortings-out. They beat…

Simon Schama