Factual Basis Quotes

I feel that historical novelists owe it to our readers to try to be as historically accurate as we can with the known facts. Obviously, we have to fill in the blanks. And then in the final analysis, we're drawing upon our own imaginations. But I think that readers need to be able to trust an author.

We have to move toward specificity, intelligence, facts, proof, and mutual affection. What I think people have to do now is be very, very assertive about the utter essentiality of intellectual undertakings.

You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.

Everything in 'The Tudors' is initially based on my historical research, and the fact is that the most unlikely scenes were the ones which were probably most based on reality. I prefer to be as real as possible, and there is so much of that story that you just can't make up.

I was among the people in the Superdome. I knew what was going on every minute. I did not have air conditioning nor shower facilities. I made decisions based upon facts and not what I thought was going to happen. So history will judge me based upon those actions.

In the theory of evolution there is no talk of God and no Bibles are used. They're not looking for higher powers, extraterrestrials, or anything else that could be found in the science fiction section, because they are not dealing with fiction.

I'm not going to let people get away with either a dishonest or inaccurate premise to what we're talking about because I think that does the viewer a disturbance.

I talk about things that happened in my life. Now, do I embellish? Absolutely. Come on, we all do it. It makes for a better story. But it always comes from a germ of truth.

Skepticism is essential to the quest for knowledge, for it is in the seedbed of puzzlement that genuine inquiry takes root. Without skepticism, we may remain mired in unexamined belief systems that are accepted as sacrosanct yet have no factual basis in reality.

People in general have no notion of the sort and amount of evidence often needed to prove the simplest matter of fact.

My appearances are almost theatrical performances. I bring items for the children to see, such as photographs and actual piece of meteorite, a family quilt, sometimes spectacles, sometimes clothing, so that they can understand what I write about is family stories based in fact.

I believe in evidence-based decision making. I want to know what the facts are.

All good intellects have repeated, since Bacon's time, that there can be no real knowledge but which is based on observed facts.

You can’t have opinions unless you have information.

I must begin, not with hypothesis, but with specific instances, no matter how minute.

I'm a great believer in the direct quote in quotation marks and the hard fact.

There's always a germ of truth in just about everything.

I will never speculate on data. I always need to see data.

It is wiser, I believe, to arrive at theory by way of evidence rather than the other way around.... It is more rewarding, in any case, to assemble the facts first and, in the process of arranging them in narrative form, to discover a theory or a historical generalization emerging of its own accord.

The brightest flashes in the world of thought are incomplete until they have been proven to have their counterparts in the world of fact.

Don't confuse hypothesis and theory. The former is a possible explanation; the latter, the correct one. The establishment of theory is the very purpose of science.

The most distinguishing element of my novels is that I try as hard as I can - within the context of a popular commercial thriller - to make them feel authentic. Drawing on real locations and real events is part of that authenticity.

No matter how beautiful the theory, one irritating fact can dismiss the entire formulism, so it has to be proven.

The true historian … reveres the fact rather than any theory.

Much of the self-righteous nonsense that abounds on so many subjects cannot stand up to three questions: (1) Compared to what? (2) At what cost? and (3) What are the hard facts?.