Antony Beevor Quotations

The duty of a historian is simply to understand and then convey that understanding, no more than that.

I am not someone who believes I am going to find a historical scoop.

It was only after five years in the army, when I was having to do a very boring job in a very boring place, that I thought: 'Why not try writing a novel?' partly out of youthful arrogance and partly because there had been a long line of writers in my mother's family.

When I was a child I had something called Perthes' Disease which meant I was on crutches, so I was bullied at school and all that sort of stuff.

I think one of the great disasters (in military history) is the way that the Second World War has become the defining reference point for every crisis and every conflict.

The British bombing of Caen beginning on D-Day in particular was stupid, counter-productive and above all very close to a war crime.

It takes me three or four years to research and write each book and the individual stories stay with you for a long time afterwards.

I just write the sort of book that I would enjoy reading myself, a book that is both scholarly and recreates the experience of people at that time.

If you smash a city when you're trying to capture it, you actually end up providing the perfect terrain for the defenders while blocking the access for your own armoured vehicles.

When my first novel was published, I went in great excitement round bookshops in central London to see if they had stocked it.