" I have been reading history all my life, and am sharply aware that I know very little. I have an exaggerated respect for historians--certain historians; they seem to me grounded in a way that most of us are not, possessed of an extra sense by virtue of access to times and places when things were done differently. They have--can have--heightened perception. "

― Penelope Lively , Dancing Fish and Ammonites: A Memoir