I've always been fascinated by the operation of memory - the way in which it is not linear but fragmented, and its ambivalence.

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

the days of our lives vanish utterly, more insubstantial than if they had been invented. Fiction can seem more enduring than reality.

I rather like getting away from fiction.

Equally, we require a collective past - hence the endless reinterpretations of history, frequently to suit the perceptions of the present.

The present hardly exists, after all-it becomes the past even as it happens. A tricky medium, time - and central to the concerns of fiction.