I am very proud to come back to speak on the disinterested effort we have made and I believe that with all due respect that the decisions we made when we turned our final report over to President Johnson will stand in history.

That is a Medieval way of drawing history in which they do not respect the law and want the rest of the world to respect the law. That's not possible.

I think any period in history can be adapted into interesting fiction as long as you approach the actual history with respect.

Christianity is usually called a religion. As a religion it has had a wider geographic spread and is more deeply rooted among more peoples than any other religion in the history of mankind.

And religion causes most of the problems war and economics of course and study your history or you're going to repeat it and if you're burning a Harry Potter book you need some serious counseling you don't get it you're missing the whole point.

All religions have periods in their history which are looked back to with retrospective fear and trembling as eras of persecution and each religion has its own book of martyrs.

History is the key to everything: politics religion even fashion.

When I'm not writing I read loads of fiction but I've been writing quite constantly lately so I've been reading a lot of nonfiction - philosophy religion science history social or cultural studies.

On the Native American front we have turned a new page in the 400-year history of the interface between the American settlers of this country and the nation's first Americans. That's included a new relationship where the sovereignty of tribes is in fact recognized.

I think that to a very great extent we are partners with the divine in this enterprise called history. That is an ongoing relationship and there is absolutely no guarantee that things will automatically work out to our best advantage.