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One of the things that's important about family is the narrative history they create for themselves.

Stories in families are colossally important. Every family has stories: some funny, some proud, some embarrassing, some shameful. Knowing them is proof of belonging to the family.

Myths which are believed in tend to become true.

My parents were of the generation that lived through the Second World War, but I grew up listening to my mother recounting her dad's tales about his terrible experiences during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 and later on the Western Front.

Myths are stories that express meaning, morality or motivation. Whether they are true or not is irrelevant.

In families there is always the mythology. My father died when my kids were quite young still, and yet they still tell his stories. That is how a person lives on.

As a child, I was fortunate enough to be close to family members who were - and still are - great storytellers. I was a gullible country boy from Rocky Mount, Virginia, and I believed every folktale they told me, no matter how fantastic.

Families always stay the same, but they always provide more stories.

Presidents are always also storytellers, purveyors of useful national mythologies. And surprisingly enough, Richard Nixon, this awkward man who didn't even really like people, had not been so bad at this duty - at least in the first four years of his presidency.

History is very much bound up in family experience.