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1 " Montaigne admits to getting carried away in the heat of an argument, exaggerating the naked truth by the vigor of his words. Yet we all insist upon our opinions, forcing them upon others by iron and fire. Better to be tentative than to be recklessly sure, to be an apprentice at sixty than to present oneself as a doctor at ten. "
― Natalie Zemon Davis , The Return of Martin Guerre
2 " I have two goals. First, that readers be interested, drawn by a historical account, amused by its comic aspects, saddened by the tragic elements, captured by the possibilities of the past; and second, that readers be aware that there could be another way of looking at things besides the one I offer. I’m not giving a lesson or a sermon, I’m offering a dialogue, as I said before. "
― Natalie Zemon Davis , A Passion for History: Conversations with Denis Crouzet
3 " I have a penchant, an appetite for writing lives, even unhappy ones, in the course of which the person holds on to a certain dignity up to the end, in spite of the disappointments, the things unfinished, the suffering… "
4 " Nuestros libros, en cuanto dejan nuestras manos, tienen vida propia. "
5 " For me, the sources from the past, primary or secondary, are not a prison. They are a magic thread that links me to people long since dead and with situations that have crumbled to dust. The sources set off my reflection and imagination, I stay in dialogue with them, and I love this. This liaison with the past is the heart of my vocation as historian. The sources leave a space for speculation, and I will have to use it sometimes in my book on al-Wazzan. But I must always identify my speculations as such for my readers, and show them the bases for believing a certain thing is possible, probable, or contingent. "
6 " In later years I never put aside this kind of inquiry, that is, into the modes of thinking and representation embedded in a text, but I asked new questions about ways of writing and the forms and rituals of discourse. I began to look not only at what was stated or declared in a text, but also at what was suggested through expression, through performance. "
7 " What human beings have done in the past, the enormous range in ways of living and possible actions, is a source both of hope and despair. How fascinating it is to consider this variety in human events. We can draw hope from it in the sense that if things have been different in the past, perhaps we’re in a position to make them a little different today. When I say “usefulness”, I don’t mean that history offers us models that we can apply – the details of different situations are too unlike each other. History offers us ideas, points of views, perspectives, landmarks, indices – possibilities. "
8 " The use of the conditional is a safeguard for the historian. […] I hope, and I say this with a smile, that my conditionals are well supported by my research. I use all my ingenuity and years of haunting archives and libraries to find evidence that can work. The conditionals are also a way to leave my argument open, to suggest a tension between my interest in my subjects and their own thoughts and desires. And through my conditionals, I’m leaving open to my readers greater freedom to say “But no…”. "
