“One of the troubles is this: the heart isn't heart-shaped.”

“You can deal with the brain, as I say; it looks sensible, whereas the heart, the human heart, I'm afraid, looks a fucking mess.”

“That's one of the central problems of history, isn't it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us.”

“What does the novel do? It tells beautiful, shapely lies which enclose hard, exact truths.”

“History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us.”

“Life isn't just addition and subtraction. There's also the accumulation, the multiplication, of loss, of failure.”

“What you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed.”