My first career ambitions involved turning into a boy; I intended to be either a railway guard or a knight errant.

When you have committed enough words to paper, you feel you have a spine stiff enough to stand up in the wind. But when you stop writing, you find that's all you are - a spine, a row of rattling vertebrae, dried out like an old quill pen.

She is very plain. What does Henry see in her?'" "He thinks she's stupid. He finds it restful.

Much historical fiction that centers on real people has always been deficient in information, lacking in craft and empty in affect.

But an experienced reader is also a self-aware and critical reader. I can't remember ever reading a story without judging it.

My concern is less the monarchy as such than the attempt of a fading colonial power to hang onto grandeur.

In order to successfully impersonate men, the woman [Margaret Thatcher] launched a war.