To come to England in the 1970s was to return to this strange other-world of half-known history. I found the imperial architecture curiously familiar: the post office, the town hall, the botanic gardens.

An aircraft cabin is a place that seems to be nowhere, but I find it steeped in the place left behind and the place ahead.

In London, I discovered a peculiar building by Holland Park where the globe was shrunk to fit a British perspective, but which had a library with Sri Lankan books I had never seen before.

Romesh Gunesekera Quotes