Peter Gay

And my interest in history was, and remains, very strong: what I wanted was to understand certain things better by understanding them psychoanalytically.

To have a liberal temperament is a kind of psychological boon, To be able to understand that someone you disagree with is not just a terrible creature but somebody with whom you disagree.

Every historian has informally an anthropology, without ever using the word.

I have no neighbours other than animals and Joshua Trees.

People really do make the assumption that I had some weirdo Hollywood upbringing, but my parents are incredibly down-to-earth people who worked really hard to raise us in a way that was health.