"HISTORY IS A RACE BETWEEN EDUCATION AND DISASTER" - H.G.WELLS
"NEW INFORMATION RESIDES NOWHERE UNTIL IT HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED, ASSEMBLED AND COMMUNICATED BY ONE OR ANOTHER KIND OF REPORTER; AND EVERY REPORTER SETS OUT ON EVERY QUEST MORE OR LESS IN THE DARK. AT FIRST, THERE IS LITTLE TO GO ON EXCEPT INSTINCT; BUT AT LAST, AS FRAGMENT AFTER FRAGMENT FALLS INTO PLACE, INFORMATION MATERIALIZES, AND SOME LIGHT, WITH LUCK, IS CAST.
The New Yorker's William Shawn, from his intro to a collection of stories by the magazine's long-ago Paris-based correspondent, Janet Flanner, known by her by-line as Genet.