"History is gossip that's been legitimized, and that's really the case when you get into some of the Roman historians. Wow! They'd be right at home on reality tv."

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These books have not made George nobler or better or more truly wise. It is just that he likes listening to their voices, the one or the other, acording to his mood. He misuses them quite ruthlessly - despite the respectful way he has to talk about them in public - to put him to bed, to take his mind off the hands of the clock, to relax the nagging of his pyloric spasm, to gossip him out of his melancholy, to trigger the conditioned reflexes of his colon.

— Christopher Isherwood