"When I was, say, fifteen years old in 1958, I could have gone and talked to a veteran of World War I or World War II and said, 'Tell me your story.' They could have taught us with these men who had experience in war, instead of giving us a dry history book. I think that to understand history, to be excited by history, a human being needs something. You need the capacity to feel sympathy for the people you're reading about in the story."