“Clichés can be quite fun. That's how they got to be clichés.”

“All the effort went into getting there and then I had nothing left. I thought I'd got somewhere, then I found I had to go on.”

“TIMMS: I don't see how we can understand it. Most of the stuff poetry's about hasn't happened to us yet.HECTOR: But it will, Timms. It will. And then you will have the antidote ready! Grief. Happiness. Even when you're dying. We're making your deathbeds here, boys.LOCKWOOD: Fucking Ada.HECTOR: Poetry is the trailer! Forthcoming attractions!”

“... Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up. Books, bread and butter, mashed potato - one finishes what's on one's plate. That's always been my philosophy.”

“How old does one have to be still to say tits?”

“How do I define history? It's just one fucking thing after another”

“[talking about the Holocaust]'But to put something in context is a step towards saying it can be understood and that it can be explained. And if it can be explained that it can be explained away.''But this is History. Distance yourselves. Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground. We don't see it, and because we don't see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past. And one of the historian's jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be... even on the Holocaust.”