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Thanks to Skylark for an entertaining and challenging set of clues and “extras”. I was less certain about the endgame. The person who made the statement was clear enough and I think I have the other one. But I’m not sure about my third highlight. If I have it right (always a very big “If”!) I would have described that as a subject of “m**y r*****s” rather than a ”s****e” of them.

Happy to be disabused and stood on the pettifogging step!

Thanks, Jack. I see what you mean, but I think the 's' word is being used in the loosest of senses?

Thanks, Malone. I may well have gone wrong on the third element. There is an obvious (human) “S-word” with a similar letter count to my third highlight but my grid-staring didn’t reveal it (which may well be a failure on my part, of course).

A possibly mis-spent part of my life means that I always see the “S-word” with the initials CHI in front. (Not an abbreviation fou d in the BRB, I think.) So I am probably predisposed to be pedantic about it,

All of which is entirely beside the point. I enjoyed the puzzle. So job well done.

Yes, I'm pretty sure the straight line option has to be the right one and illustrates the quote nicely, but there are a some nice meandering 'extras' too. C makes a snake-like appearance and a version of B appears symmetrically (but without enough letters to complete the highlighting).
Another nice puzzle, I think - with a beginning, middle and endgame (and real words in the grid) - Listener couldn't manage any of one of the above.

...I searched for the historian too, but to no avail.

An historian who would, despite fulfilling the “H” would absolutely not have satisfied the ‘“C” in my - as far as the crossword is concerned - irrelevant acronym!

The quality of the “I” might have been challenged, too!

I completely agree with jack aubrey@1 - 'subject' would have given me a chance of working out what I was looking for in the grid rather than having to do an ab initio search for B and C. That said, once the names were found there could be no doubt that the search was over.