We All Act As Hinges-fortuitous Links Between

It Seems To Me That Everything That Happens To Us Is A Disconcerting Mix Of Choice And Contingency.

All History, Of Course, Is The History Of Wars.

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.

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.

You Have This Comet Trail Of Your Own Lived Life, Sparks From Which Arrive In The Head All The Time, Whether You Want Them Or Not - Life Has Been Lived But It Is Still All Going On, In The Mind For Better And For Worse.