Graham Swift

“It's a strange thing, a funeral. A crowd of people all in the same place, all thinking the same thing, but none of them saying it.”

“A man's life is not his own. It is an accumulation of the lives of all those who have gone before him.”

“All it takes for generosity to exist is for someone to be in need.”

“Memory is a funny thing. It's a sort of scrapbook of the mind, a collection of oddments and souvenirs.”

“What is history? It is a story, a narrative. And like all stories, it is not the truth, but a version of the truth.”

“Life is not a story, it's a series of events.”

“The past is not a foreign country.”

“Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.”

“History is that which is agreed upon by mutual consent.”

“The trouble with life is that you don't get a rehearsal.”

“Curiosity is the engine of achievement.”

“And the explanation? The explanation is that we are children. That’s all. Grown-up children.”

“We live in a world where we can’t say what we think, feel what we like or do what we want. We can only say, feel and do what is expected of us.”