Life doesn't just happen it's constructed through the history of power. And that's something I am interested in and so is the art world: a world that's trying to engage socially with a leftist slant to work out how we got here.

Accuracy is paramount in every detail of a work of history. Here's my rule: Ask yourself 'Did this thing happen?' If the answer is yes then it's historical. Then ask 'Did this thing happen precisely this way?' If the answer is yes then it's history if the answer is no not precisely this way then it's historical drama.

In man - in the history of mankind this has happened many times and occupation leaders hang on to the land that they're occupying. People fight to liberate their land. But in the end the people's will is what achieves victory.

That's history. I say history because it happened in the past.

History is littered with wars which everybody knew would never happen.

The Deep South has a completely different history both good and bad that is fascinating for everybody. It makes people work together who usually don't and that sounds like a cliche in so many ways but it actually happened... and it happened because of a beautiful idea.

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.

It's in the history books the Holocaust. It's just a phrase. And the truth is it happened yesterday. It happened to my mother. I never met my grandmothers or my grandfathers. They were all wiped up in the gas chambers of Nazi Germany.

September 11 was terrible but if one goes back over the history of the IRA what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible.

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.