All history, of course, is the history of wars.

We all need a past - that's where our sense of identity comes from.

Unless I am a part of everything I am nothing.

It seems to me that anyone whose library consists of a Kindle lying on a table is some sort of bloodless nerd.

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.

I rather like getting away from fiction.

But who knows their own child? You know bits - certain predictable reactions, a handful of familiar qualities. The rest is impenetrable. And quite right too. You give birth to them. You do not design them.