History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious or defeated.

When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.

Paris is certainly one of the most boastful of cities, and you could argue that it has had a lot to boast about: at various times the European centre of power, of civilisation, of the arts, and (self-advertisingly, at least) of love.

How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but — mainly — to ourselves.

Start with the notion that yours is the sole responsibility unless there's powerful evidence to the contrary

In Britain I'm sometimes regarded as a suspiciously Europeanized writer, who has this rather dubious French influence.

WHORES. Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius.