The Ministry of Time

he looked oddly formal, as if he was the sole person in serif font.

Set your narrative as canon and in a tiny way you have pried your death out of time, as long as the narrative is recalled by someone else.

I ordered a pint of Guinness because it was what my dad drank. It tasted like angry Marmite;

The only thing you can mend is the future.

“Better?” “It embarrasses me to convey just how much better.

“History is not a series of causes and effects which may be changed like switching trains on a track. It is a narrative agreement about what has happened and what is happening.

So far as I understood the British Empire, other people’s countries were useful or negligible but rarely conceived of as autonomous. The empire regarded the world the way my dad regards the elastic bands the post deliverer drops on their round: This is handy, it’s just lying here; now it’s mine.

that meant they would be people, which is a complicating factor. When dealing with refugees, especially en masse, it’s better not to think of them as people. It messes with the paperwork.

Do you think the world changes by being asked politely? Or do you think there has to be risk?”