Jews read the books of Moses not just as history but as divine command. The question to which they are an answer is not 'What happened?' but rather 'How then shall I live?' And it's only with the exodus that the life of the commands really begins.

OUR history begins before we are born. We represent the hereditary influences of our race and our ancestors virtually live in us.

If I were beginning my career today I don't think I would take the same direction. Television is at a crossroads at the moment. And although I am not up to date technologically I suspect that somewhere out there people are conveying things about natural history by means other than television and I think if I were beginning today I'd be there.

There is a spirit and a need and a man at the beginning of every great human advance. Every one of these must be right for that particular moment of history or nothing happens.

My generation of bossy confident baby-boom women were something brand new in history. Our energy and assertiveness weren't created by Betty Friedan unknown before her 1963 book or by Gloria Steinem whose political activism as even the Lifetime profile admitted did not begin until 1969.

A man acquainted with history may in some respect be said to have lived from the beginning of the world and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.

It's very attractive to people to be a victim. Instead of having to think out the whole situation about history and your group and what you are doing... if you begin from the point of view of being a victim you've got it half-made. I mean intellectually.

History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.

We've persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people - a belief that out of the ashes of war a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq we have met our responsibility. Now it's time to turn the page.

History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.