the days of our lives vanish utterly, more insubstantial than if they had been invented. Fiction can seem more enduring than reality.

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.

The more silent you are at bed during times of crisis, the more are the chances of an amicable, dignified and a not so counterproductive interchange of romantic exuberance.

„We are the embodiment of Life, we are born into this world as a result of a Miracle.

I was glad I liked chemistry.

People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about it, not when it's around your neck.

There was an Old Man of the East, Who gave all his children a feast; But they all ate so much, and their conduct was such, That it killed that Old Man of the East.

Who, I ask you, can take, dare take, on himself the rights, the duties, the responsibilities of another human soul?

Secretary of State, maybe they [Republicans] would consider Steve Hadley for that job.

Kids have been a great clarifier - incredibly rewarding.

My kids love Ibiza and we feel committed to it because we keep coming back to the same area. People recognise us in shops now and we have a social life here. We cook at home and have friends around.

Do you drink?" "Of course,I just said I was a writer.