#️⃣Writing

I look back over what I’ve written and I know it’s wrong, not because of what I’ve set down, but because of what I’ve omitted. What isn’t there has a presence, like the absence of light.

The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself.

There’s a peculiar dichotomy in the nature of almost anyone who calls himself a historian. Such scholars all piously assure us that they’re telling us the real truth about what really happened, but if you turn any competent historian over and look at his damp underside, you’ll find a storyteller, and you can believe me when I tell you that no storyteller’s ever going to tell a story without a few embellishments. Add to that the fact that we’ve all got assorted political and theological preconceptions that are going to color what we write, and you’ll begin to realize that no history of any event is entirely reliable.