Because love is the meeting point of truth and magic. Truth, as in photography; magic, as in ballooning.

Why does the writing make us chase the writer? Why can't we leave well enough alone? Why aren't the books enough?

Sometimes you find the panel, but it doesn’t open; sometimes it opens, and your gaze meets nothing but a mouse skeleton. But at least you’ve looked. That’s the real distinction between people: not between those who have secrets and those who don’t, but between those who want to know everything and those who don’t. This search is a sign of love I maintain.

If a man cannot tell what he wants to do, then he must find out what he ought to do. If desire has become complicated, then hold fast to duty.

In 1980, I published my first novel, in the usual swirl of unjustified hope and justified anxiety.

That's one of the central problems of history, isn't it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us.

Very few of my characters are based on people I've known. It is too constricting.