The consideration of change over the century is about loss, though I think that social change is gain rather than loss.

I believe that the experience of childhood is irretrievable. All that remains, for any of us, is a headful of brilliant frozen moments, already dangerously distorted by the wisdoms of maturity.

The idea that memory is linear is nonsense. What we have in our heads is a collection of frames. As to time itself-can it be linear when all these snatches of other presents exist at once in your mind? A very elusive and tricky concept, time.

I am addicted to arrivals, to those innocent dawn moments from which history accelerates.

People die, but money never does.

I didn't want it to be a book that made pronouncements.

Giving presents is one of the most possessive things we do, did you realize that? It's the way we keep a hold on other people. Plant ourselves in their lives.