God takes out your heart of flesh, and gives you a heart of stone.

[Margaret Thatcher] aroused such strong loathing in so many people. That's the fact that interests me.

The word 'however' is like an imp coiled beneath your chair. It induces ink to form words you have not yet seen, and lines to march across the page and overshoot the margin. There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one.

Memory isn't a theme; it's part of the human condition.

You're only young once, they say, but doesn't it go on for a long time? More years than you can bear.

Insights don't usually arrive at my desk, but go into notebooks when I'm on the move. Or half-asleep.

I'm one of these children who grew up at the knee of my grandmother and her elder sister, listening to very old people talk about their memories.