Writing fiction is very different to writing non-fiction. I love writing novels, but on history books, like my biographies of Stalin or Catherine the Great or Jerusalem, I spend endless hours doing vast amounts of research. But it ends up being based on the same principle as all writing about people: and that is curiosity!
Simon Sebag Montefiore
I haven't had vast amounts of ministerial experience - in fact, none at all. But I do have a lot of experience of people.
If you doubt that we live in a winner-take-all economy and that education is the trump card, consider the vast amounts the affluent spend to teach their offspring.
Most history books are about power.
Simon Sebag Montefiore
It is over with; I am in the history books.
Michael Moorer
I read more history books than anything else.
James McBride
I read all the time... I read a lot of history books.
Mickey Spillane
History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.
Television and film are our libraries now. Our history books.
If you read all your history books, there are no women in them.
Female television viewers paid attention to Catherine Gale.
Honor Blackman
Catherine Keener is everyone's dream sister slash mom slash aunt.
Allison Williams
Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great.
Catherine Zeta-Jones started out like me. Her big break in Hollywood was in 'Zorro.'
I have been intrigued by Catherine de Medici and the legends surrounding her for a long time.
Stalin is the most popular figure in all of Russia.
Vladimir Putin
Cromwell is just as much of a bloody dictator as was Stalin.
Vladimir Putin
In the new Georgia, Stalin is no longer Georgian. He's a Russian emperor.
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Unlike the Holocaust, Stalin's murders are forgotten: dust blowing in the wind.
Under Stalin, artists weren't dissidents; all they hoped was to survive and write.
Saddam Hussein admired, studied, and copied Stalin, the paragon of modern dictators.
Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have a large collection of biographies about jazz musicians.
Michael Connelly
After a certain number of years, our faces become our biographies.
I've always enjoyed reading history, particularly presidential biographies.
I've always had an abundance of material about the subjects of my biographies.
You learn a lot, writing fiction.
Penelope Lively
I like going back and writing fiction.
Julia Sweeney
So much emotion goes into writing fiction.
Stephen Carter
I was writing fiction, but not finishing fiction.
Elizabeth Moon
Writing fiction is an act of imaginative empathy.
Fact-checking is so boring compared to writing fiction.
Writing fiction, I really just sit there and it just comes.
I tend to read non-fiction.
Gary Oldman
I wasn't trained to write non-fiction.
Leila Aboulela
I'm a huge historical fiction and non-fiction fan.
Gale Anne Hurd
We like non-fiction because we live in fictitious times.
David Shields
His theory was that non-fiction could be as artful as fiction.
Non-fiction books have helped me enormously with lots of my books.
Before Truman, journalism and non-fiction weren't taken very seriously.
What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?
Tertullian
The Old City of Jerusalem is in our hands.
Moshe Dayan
Construction in Jerusalem cannot be halted.
Eli Yishai
I always wanted to write a history of Jerusalem.
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Writing about Jerusalem can be such a minefield.
Jerusalem should not tolerate any religious war.
The grandeur of Jerusalem is also... its problem.
I'm full of curiosity.
Sienna Miller
Never lose a holy curiosity.
Albert Einstein
People die when curiosity goes.
Graham Swift
I try to be led by my curiosity.
Lynn Nottage
Replace judgment with curiosity.
Curiosity is the lust of the mind.
I have survivor's curiosity, I guess.
The potential of your body is endless.
Thierry Mugler
I think that music has an endless life.
Anne Dudley
I'm so grateful for my endless delusion.
Justin Tranter
I did the occasional odd film, like Endless Love.
Shirley Knight
Golf is a game of endless failure and frustration.
Endless effort, endless humility, endless modesty.
I tire of franchises, remakes, and endless sequels.
Drama starts where logic ends.
Ram Charan
Great art picks up where nature ends.
Marc Chagall
Prayer begins where human capacity ends.
Marian Anderson
Nothing ends nicely, that's why it ends.
Tom Cruise
Architecture begins where engineering ends.
Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.
A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.
Texas is as odd as it is vast.
Henry Rollins
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
Alexander Pope
History is a vast early warning system.
Norman Cousins
I don't have a vast longing for the stage.
Anthony Hopkins
Marvel is a very vast and diverse universe.
The vast majority of the CGI budget is labor.
I suppress the vast majority of what I write.
A precedent embalms a principle.
Benjamin Disraeli
The principle part of faith is patience.
George MacDonald
I get angry at a principle, not a person.
Norman Schwarzkopf
Rise above principle and do what's right.
Joseph Heller
The principle of art is to pause, not bypass.
Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
A war for a great principle ennobles a nation.
I'm metrics-based.
Jamie S. Miller
My act is based on my life.
Kathy Griffin
Love is based on imagination.
Olivier Martinez
'Shadowboxer' was based on my life.
Solutions must be based on compromises.
All confrontation is based on deception.
I'm big on research.
James L. Brooks
I'm a research queen.
Jurnee Smollett-Bell
I love doing research.
Tom Goodman-Hill
I really like research.
Miranda Otto
I don't research anything.
All I'm armed with is research.
I am all for stem cell research.
I love science fiction.
Moon Bloodgood
I hate science fiction.
James Dyson
I love science fiction.
Pam Grier
I read a lot of fiction.
Leila Aboulela
I prefer fact to fiction.
I tend to read non-fiction.
Fiction is organized gossip.
I love books.
Matthew Macfadyen
I love books.
Gail Porter
I love my books.
Elizabeth Edwards
Books always help.
Aung San Suu Kyi
I don't read books.
Books are finished.
I don't read books.
I'm a history nut.
Billy Joel
History is history.
Troy Vincent
I'm part of history.
Alex Rodriguez
History's a resource.
Laura Linney
History is not hatred.
I am a fan of history.
Freedom has no history.
I love writing.
Bonnie Hunt
I enjoy writing.
Charles Cumming
Writing is hard.
Spike Jonze
Writing is not fun.
Rian Johnson
Writing is my therapy.
I believe in my writing.
Writing can't be taught.
Tech never comes back the same.
Samuel J. Palmisano
We never do the same set twice.
David Bryan
Boys and girls are not the same.
Tucker Carlson
The world remains ever the same.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I never wear the same shoe twice.
Our songs all carry the same way.
I don't write the same book twice.
Every lap is different.
Lewis Hamilton
It's a different world.
John Ashcroft
I like being different.
Brantley Gilbert
Every song is different.
Dimebag Darrell
I'm no different than you.
I make different films now.
Nature has different times.
God is great.
Sean Kingston
Pilates is great.
Orlando Bloom
Pop was great fun.
Delta Goodrem
I'm a great singer.
Mauricio Macri
I love great quotes.
My thighs are great!
Fatherhood is great.
I like to eat.
Chris Messina
I like to run.
Ann Marie Buerkle
I like my life.
Harry Connick, Jr.
I like to work.
Gary Coleman
I like a drama.
I like to work.
I'd like to fly.
I like people.
Jeff Bridges
Design is people.
Jane Jacobs
I trust the people.
William Hague
I look after people.
Amy Winehouse
I believe in people.
Hell is other people.
People don't like me.