What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences because it's not profitable and now Newt as the highest-paid historian in American history may be an encouragement to people to study history.

Since I was there in the very beginning I know the history of the characters. So I make comments about the tone and sometimes remind the writers that we've done that before.

All through history there have always been movements where business was not just about the accumulation of proceeds but also for the public good.

Gay writers now have both a sense of history and the fables that allows them to dwell in the realms of the ridiculous and at the same time talk seriously about things.

The general consensus among historians among the ones who can handle the fact that 'Lincoln' is in fact historical fiction is that we demonstrate enormous fidelity to history and that beyond that we've actually contributed a line of thinking about Lincoln's presidency that's somewhat original.

More people have more access to more readers for less money than ever before in history. It means a lot of dross but it means a lot of very talented people can find and nurture a readership in ways that were not possible twenty years ago. From a creative perspective that is all that writing is about.

Secretly I'm a real big nerd. I'd rather stay home and play Scrabble than go to a Hollywood party any day of the week. And I love reading about history and watching the Discovery Channel.

Life is a wonderful thing to talk about or to read about in history books - but it is terrible when one has to live it.

Part of what I enjoy about the theatre and acting is that sense of history.

The '80s were fabulous. The '90s sucked and the '70s were just a sad sad time in human history. Go 1980s! There's something that's just so cute about that time. And not just yellow nail polish and 'I'm a loner.'

If you read about Mussolini or Stalin or some of these other great monsters of history they were at it all the time that they were getting up in the morning very early. They were physically very active. They didn't eat lunch.

It seems disingenuous to ask a writer why she or he is writing about a violent subject when the world and history are filled with violence.

I realise that I do not change the course of history. I am an actor I do a movie that's the end of it. You have to realise we are just clowns for hire. After I had success it was great at first not to worry about money. It was on my mind when I was growing up.

Every writer has his writing technique - what he can and can't do to describe something like war or history. I'm not good at writing about those things but I try because I feel it is necessary to write that kind of thing.

Of course nobody would deny the importance of human beings for theological thinking but the time span of history that theologians think about is a few thousand years of human culture rather than the fifteen billion years of the history of the universe.

Asking the author of historical novels to teach you about history is like expecting the composer of a melody to provide answers about radio transmission.

There is a widespread difficulty in the Muslim world which has to do with how the people are taught about examining their own history. A whole range of stuff has been placed off limits.