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I'm not an historian but I can get interested - obsessively interested - with any aspect of the past, whether it's palaeontology or archaeology or the very recent past.

There's a preoccupation with memory and the operation of memory and a rather rapacious interest in history.

It is curious to note how fragile the memory is, even for the important times in one's life. This is, moreover, what explains the fortunate fantasy of history.

My first memory was of stories about the past - a past that, according to the storytellers, was superior in every way to the life then being lived. It didn't take me long, however, to understand that the present was all we had, for the past was gone, and nothing could be done about it.

History is present in all my novels. And whether I am directly talking about the sociological moment or just immersing my character in the environment, I am very aware of it.

I was always interested in the kind of history they didn't teach you in school.

Countries and places have a history, a story, and a culture.

If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.

Memory is the first casualty of middle age, if I remember correctly.

Whatever can be noted historically can be found within history.