History unravels; circumstances, following their natural inclination, prefer to remain ravelled.

I've always been fascinated by the operation of memory - the way in which it is not linear but fragmented, and its ambivalence.

We make choices but are constantly foiled by happenstance.

I'm not a historian but I can get interested - obsessively interested - with any aspect of the past, whether it's palaeontology or archaeology or the very recent past.

It seems to me that anyone whose library consists of a Kindle lying on a table is some sort of bloodless nerd.

The present hardly exists, after all-it becomes the past even as it happens. A tricky medium, time - and central to the concerns of fiction.

We all act as hinges-fortuitous links between other people.

The consideration of change over the century is about loss, though I think that social change is gain rather than loss.

We all need a past - that's where our sense of identity comes from.

Getting to know someone else involves curiosity about where they have come from, who they are.

The Photograph is concerned with the power that the past has to interfere with the present: the time bomb in the cupboard.

I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here.

With my sometimes blunt indecent vocabulary & very vivid imagination, I wonder if I should be writing "other" kinds of content.

The language of Mexicans springs from abysmal extremes of power and impotence, domination and resentment.

We live in a world where knowledge is developing at an ever-accelerating rate. Drink deeply from this ever-springing well of wisdom and human experience.

In fact, the United States is building up its trident nuclear sub fleet in the Pacific, based at Bangor, Washington to build up its capabilities to wage nuclear war.

No other virtue makes man more equal to the angels, than the imitation of their way of life.

If a German or an Austrian, a Greek or a Bashibazouk, had composed Gerontius, the whole world would have by now admitted its qualities.

But then I always wanted to play for Rangers. Man United is a great club and Alex Ferguson is a legend.

Nothin' taken for granted, just learn from my mistakes. My will too strong, my spirit's somethin' they can't take.

Those smutty books sell because women wish their husbands had half the balls the men in those books do.