Nations don't start out. There is not a particular moment when they unveil the essence of themselves. They are always a work in progress.

I actually think that history has fed off the restlessness of cyber space, of kind of the frantic, segmented nature of the way we lead our lives. People want to be connected.

Histories never conclude; they just pause their prose. Their stories are, if they are truthful, untidy affairs, resistant to windings-up and sortings-out. They beat raggedly on into the future.

Nations don't start out. There is not a particular moment when they unveil the essence of themselves. They are always a work in progress.

Historians are left forever chasing shadows, painfully aware of their inability ever to reconstruct a dead world in its completeness however thorough or revealing their documentation. We are doomed to be forever hailing someone who has just gone around the corner and out of earshot.

What can art really do in the face of atrocity?

The older I get, the more I want to do. It beats death, decay or golf in unfortunate trousers. Peace and quiet depress me.