All History, Of Course, Is The History

I Didn't Write Anything Until I Was Well Over 30.

Mythology Is Much Better Stuff Than History. It Has Form; Logic; A Message.

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.

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.

The Place Didn't Look The Same But It Felt The Same; Sensations Clutched And Transformed Me. I Stood Outside Some Concrete And Plate-glass Tower-block, Picked A Handful Of Eucalyptus Leaves From A Branch, Crushed Them In My Hand, Smelt, And Tears Came To My Eyes. Sixty-seven-year-old Claudia, On A Pavement Awash With Packaged American Matrons, Crying Not In Grief But In Wonder That Nothing Is Ever Lost, That Everything Can Be Retrieved, That A Lifetime Is Not Linear But Instant. That, Inside The Head, Everything Happens At Once.