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"History, the proverb says, is made at night. The European civil servant normally sleeps at night. What waits in his IN basket to confront him at nine in the morning is history."

— Thomas Pynchon

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History

More quotes by Thomas Pynchon

Behind the hieroglyphic streets there would either be a transcendent meaning, or only the earth.

The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)

It is usually not wise to discuss matters of costume with people like this, — politics or religion being far safer topicks.

Mason & Dixon (1997)

All investigations of Time, however sophisticated or abstract, have at their true base the human fear of mortality.

Against the Day (2006)

What are the stars but points in the body of God where we insert the healing needles of our terror and longing?

Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

All Thomas Pynchon quotes →

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A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love (1973)

History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

James Joyce Ulysses (1922)

If we don’t care about our past we can’t have very much hope for our future.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past, — so good night!

Thomas Jefferson

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Pynchon (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.