The history books which contain no lies are extremely tedious

Les livres d'histoire qui ne mentent pas sont tout fort maussades.

THIS is all desperately tedious,

Historians may lie, but History cannot.

Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.

Ah, Fist, it’s the curse of history that those who should read them, never do.

History has no more validity than a novel.

The fact that a book, though interesting, is untrue, of course removes it at once from the category of history, however much it may still deserve to retain a place in the always desirable group of volumes which deal with entertaining fiction. But the converse also holds, at least to the extent of permitting us to insist upon what would seem to be the elementary fact that a book which is written to be read should be readable. This rather obvious truth seems to been forgotten by some of the more zealous scientific historians, who apparently hold that the worth of a historical book is directly in proportion to the impossibility of reading it, save as a painful duty.

I […] thoroughly detest [novels that] fasten on to some historical figure, offering me bogus biography, an unpleasant mixture of fact and fiction.

If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction—and ultimately, without a major resolution.

The great inconvenience of new books is that they prevent us from reading the old ones.

It is impossible for individuals to examine the huge number of new books that are being published every day

Heuristic: never trust someone's historical analogies if (as is common with policymakers) his historical knowledge starts in 1934.

A book in which there were no lies would be a curiosity.