Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.

Events happen to everyone, and the shaping of what those events mean is a separate and rarer skill. Whoever writes the account decides which details survive, what counts as a cause and who gets to be the subject of the sentence, and that power outlasts the events themselves. It is worth taking as a warning as much as a compliment, since every history you inherit was written by somebody with a view.

When you read an account of anything, ask who assembled it and what they left out. And when you tell the story of your own year, notice how much you are choosing rather than reporting.