I wanted to forget the past, but it refused to forget me; it waited for sleep, then cornered me.

What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question.

Time has not stood still. It has washed over me, washed me away, as if I'm nothing more than a woman of sand, left by a careless child too near the water.

...and nostalgia swept through Jimmy like a sudden hunger.

What fabrications they are, mothers. Scarecrows, wax dolls for us to stick pins into, crude diagrams. We deny them an existence of their own, we make them up to suit ourselves -- our own hungers, our own wishes, our own deficiencies.

Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists, because they're a mouthy lot and they don't line up and salute very easily.

Always good to take a look at the long list for the Mann Booker, for the Commonwealth. It gives you an overview.There is so much going on all over the world that it's impossible for one person to keep up. And I can't.