We have a number of very powerful women in the world now - Mrs. [Angela] Merkel, who the Germans call Mutti. What did we call Mrs. [Margaret] Thatcher? When she was minister of education, she stopped the children's free school milk. This may sound quaint, but after the war we were such a malnourished nation that part of the founding of the welfare state were public health initiatives. Every little schoolchild got milk. Mrs. Thatcher stopped it. They called her "Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher."

Read Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. Then do what it says, including the tasks you think are impossible. You will particularly hate the advice to write first thing in the morning, but if you can manage it, it might well be the best thing you ever do for yourself. This book is about becoming a writer from the inside out. Many later advice manuals derive from it. You don't ­really need any others, though if you want to boost your confidence, "how to" books seldom do any harm. You can kick-start a whole book with some little writing exercise.

People who wrote literary novels about the past probably didn't want them pegged as historical fiction. Certainly that was true in England.

In my 20s I was in constant pain from undiagnosed endometriosis. With no prospect of a cure, I decided I needed a career - writing - that could accommodate being ill.

Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories.

Over the city lies the sweet, rotting odor of yesterday's unrecollected sins.

No ruler in the history of the world has ever been able to afford a war. They're not affordable things. No prince ever says, 'This is my budget, so this is the kind of war I can have.