“Everyone knows history is written by the winners, but that cliche misses a crucial detail: Over time, the winners are always the progressives. Conservatism can only win in the short term, because society cannot stop evolving (and social evolution inevitably dovetails with the agenda of those who see change as an abstract positive). It might take seventy years, but it always happens eventually. Serious historians are, almost without exception, self-styled progressives. Radical views--even the awful ones--improve with age.”

“And if something is only itself, it doesn't particularly matter.”

“The practical reality is that any present-tense version of the world is unstable. What we currently consider to be true--both objectively and subjectively--is habitually provisional.”

“And the quality all these reasonable failures share is an inability to accept that the statue quo is temporary.”

“And I'm probably wrong. Maybe not completely, but partially. And maybe not today, but eventually.”

“It is impossible to examine questions we refuse to ask.”

“It's difficult to cope with the infinite variety of the past, and so we apply filters and settle on a few famous names.”

“The world happens as it happens, but we construct what we remember and what we forget. And people will eventually do that to us, too.”

“I honestly believe that people of my generation despise authenticity, mostly because they're all so envious of it.”

“If I knew I was going to die at a specific moment in the future, it would be nice to be able to control what song I was listening to; this is why I always bring my iPod on airplanes.”

“Sarcasm is when you tell someone the truth by lying on purpose.”