"Writing links up one's life with the history of our time, . . . You place yourself against the cave wall, where hundreds of years of art have been inscribed, then you link yourself to it in some way.  For me, that's the relationship between history and writing, all contemporary writing. (Wachtel’s interview 257; underlines added) 

"We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.  . . . I believe in such cartography--to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings.  We are communal histories, communal books" ?The English Patient 261; underlines added? 

"The form of social space is encounter, assembly, simultaneity.  But what assembles, or what is assembled?  The answer is: everything that there is in space, everything that is produced either by nature or by society, either through their cooperation or through their conflicts.  Everything: living: living beings, things, objects, works, signs, and symbols.  (Henri Lefebvre, 101; underlines added)