Mary Queen of Scots was my first love, and that is always something special.

I think crime writing is my link with trying to preserve a sort of order.

I think there has been a great deal of valuable revisionism in women's history.

I decided as usual that justice lay in the middle - that is to say nowhere.

I love hearing details of writers' craft, as cannibals eat the brains of clever men to get cleverer.

Of course there's no such thing as a totally objective person, except Almighty God, if she exists.

I am re-reading Henry James as a change from history. I began with Daisy Miller, and I've just finished Washington Square. What a brilliant, painful book.