Andre Aciman

I write - so it would seem - to recapture, to preserve and return to the past, though I might just as easily be writing to forget and put that past behind me. ”

Writing plays fast and loose with the past. ”

Writing the past is never a neutral act. Writing always asks the past to justify itself, to give its reasons... provided we can live with the reasons. What we want is a narrative, not a log; a tale, not a trial. This is why most people write memoirs using the conventions not of history, but of fiction. ”

As a memoirist, I may claim to write the easier-to-remember things, but I could also just be writing to sweep them away. 'Don't bother me about my past,' I'll say, 'It's out in paperback now.' ”

Whenever we're having a great time, we're already anticipating the day when we will remember this great time. Many of us live in that unreal area between the past, the present, and the future. ”

Losing his wealth, his home, the life he had built, killed my father. He didn't die right away; it took four decades of exile to finish him off. ”

I may write about place and displacement, but what I'm really writing about is dispersion, evasion, ambivalence: not so much a subject as a move in everything I write. ”

Exiles see double, feel double, are double. When exiles see one place, they're also seeing - or looking for - another behind it. ”

With ritual, I punctuate my days till they no longer belong to who I am today but to who I'll be when I look back in days and years to come. ”

Marseilles, Barcelona, Trieste, Istanbul - each romances the Mediterranean in its own fashion, mostly by embracing the sea in sweeping C-shaped bays that date back to antiquity. ”