All bad things are exaggerated in the middle of the night. When you lie awake, you only think of bad things.

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

Memory is identity....You are what you have done; what you have done is in your memory; what you remember defines who you are; when you forget your life you cease to be, even before your death.

Every love story is a potential grief story.

And if you had no tongue, no celebrating language, you’d do this: cross your hands at the wrist with palms facing towards you; place your crossed wrists over your heart (the middle of your chest, anyway); then move your hands outwards a short distance, and open them towards the object of your love. It’s just as eloquent as speech.

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

We live with such easy assumptions, don't we? For instance, that memory equals events plus time. But it's all much odder than this. Who was it said that memory is what we thought we'd forgotten? And it ought to be obvious to us that time doesn't act as a fixative, rather as a solvent. But it's not convenient--- it's not useful--- to believe this; it doesn't help us get on with our lives; so we ignore it.