Though I have never thought of myself as a book collector, there are shelves in our house browsed so often, on so many rainy winter nights, that the contents have seeped into me as if by osmosis.

Back in my 20s, when I wrote 'A Place of Greater Safety,' the French Revolution novel, I thought, 'I'll always have to write historical novels because I can't do plots.'' But in the six years of writing that novel, I actually learned to write, to invent things.

My first book was a historical novel. I started writing in 1974. In those days, historical novels meant ladies with swelling bosoms on the cover. Basically, it meant historical romance. It was not respectable as a genre.

I can't think of any male politician who magnetizes love and hate - mainly hate - the way [Margaret Thatcher] did.

There is so much else in the world that is more interesting [ than monarchy].

As a writer, you owe it to yourself not to get stuck in a rut of looking at the world in a certain way.

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