My kind publishers, Toby Mundy and Margaret Stead of Atlantic Books, have commissioned me to write the life of Queen Victoria.

As Hitler himself later enunciated, it matters not how idiotic the creed, what matters is the firmness with which it is enunciated.

I believe the collapse of the House of Windsor is tied in with the collapse of the Church of England.

On the rare occasions when I spend a night in Oxford, the keeping of the hours by the clock towers in New College, and Merton, and the great booming of Tom tolling 101 times at 9 pm at Christ Church are inextricably interwoven with memories and regrets and lost joys. The sound almost sends me mad, so intense are the feelings it evokes.

I'm not saying all publishers have to be literary, but some interest in books would help.

It is remarkable how easily children and grown-ups adapt to living in a dictatorship organised by lunatics.

History does not eliminate grievances. It lays them down like landmines.