Trust the story ... the storyteller may dissemble and deceive, the story can't: the story can only ever be itself.

It might be tough, but my dad used to say, tough times don't last — tough people do.

Our ability to look back on the past, our need or desire to make sense of it, is both a blessing and a curse; and our inability to see into the future with any degree of accuracy is, simultaneously, the thing that saves us and the thing that condemns us.

There is something hugely civilised about allowing long pauses in a conversation. Very few people can stand that kind of silence.

When we're in the story, when we're part of it, we can't know the outcome. It's only later that we think we can see what the story was. But do we ever really know? And does anybody else, perhaps, coming along a little later, does anybody else really care? ... History is written by the survivors, but what is that history? That's the point I was trying to make just now. We don't know what the story is when we're in it, and even after we tell it we're not sure. Because the story doesn't end.

The dead hand has too long hampered the freedom of the living.

Trust the story ... the storyteller may dissemble and deceive, the story can't: the story can only ever be itself.