W. G. Sebald

“I've always felt that the traditional novel doesn't give you enough information about the narrator, and I think it's important to know the point of view from which these tales are told: the...”

“The moral backbone of literature is about that whole question of memory. To my mind it seems clear that those who have no memory have the much greater chance to lead happy lives.”

“To my mind, it seems clear that those who have no memory have the much greater chance to lead happy lives. But it is something you cannot possibly escape: your psychological make-up is such...”

“It would be presumptuous to say writing a book would be a sufficient gesture, but if people were more preoccupied with the past, maybe the events that overwhelm us would be fewer.”

“Mine is a European imagination, shaped largely by my very promiscuous reading in German, French, English and, with greater difficulty, Italian.”

“I've always been interested in photographs, collecting them not systematically but randomly. They get lost, then turn up again.”

“Occasionally I write a small piece or the odd lecture in English, and I teach in English, but my fiction is always written in German.”

“In school I was in the dark room all the time, and I've always collected stray photographs; there's a great deal of memory in them.”