The fact that I spend a lot of time in the 18th century doesn't mean I'm not concerned with the 21st.

I arrived from Harvard, where I had studied philosophy and the history of ideas, with a bias toward literature and formal thought.

The notion of 'history from below' hit the history profession in England very hard around the time I came to Oxford in the early 1960s.

I would not minimize the digital divide, which separates the computerized world from the rest, nor would I underestimate the importance of traditional books.

The American revolutionaries believed in the power of the word. But they had only word of mouth and the printing press. We have the Internet.

Digital data are more fragile than printed material.

It's important to make clear to all the schools at Harvard the central role of the library.

My work has taken me from historical research to involvement in electronic publishing ventures to the directorship of the Harvard University Libraries.

I worked for a brief spell as a journalist, but soon I discovered that I didn't want to be a journalist - I wanted to be a historian.

Once the rain starts falling it's hard to tell it to stop...

If making a difference in someone else’s life makes me sleep every night, then I will do it everyday.

I will be a role model for cancer patients for the rest of my life. But you know what? When I was getting chemo, those people inspired me.

All art is an abstraction to some degree.

We cannot appreciate the art of any age without first acquiring an equivalent of the experience it depicts.

If we are attacked we can only defend ourselves with guns not with butter.

What darkness to you is light to me

The best thing about lying in bed late is that you learn to distinguish between first things and trivia, for whatever presses on you has to prove its importance before it makes you move.

We have to understand that people are different. I don't know, if we really understand who we're dealing with over there.

Sadly for my wedding plans, I learned that Nestor is a bardash. I envy the men who enjoy his favors. He has always treated me with friendship which I now value more than my old romantic feelings.