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.

I'm not a historian but I can get interested - obsessively interested - with any aspect of the past, whether it's palaeontology or archaeology or the very recent past.

Wars are fought by children. Conceived by their mad demonic elders, and fought by boys.

I didn't think I had anything particular to say, but I thought I might have something to say to children.

Mythology is much better stuff than history. It has form; logic; a message.

I can walk about London and see a society that seems an absolutely revolutionary change from the 1950s, that seems completely and utterly different, and then I can pick up on something where you suddenly see that it's not.

Getting to know someone else involves curiosity about where they have come from, who they are.