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.

[H]ope takes you by the throat like a stranger, it makes your heart leap.

What [Margaret Thatcher] made a play for was the acquisitive: our greedy nature. She set aside other things like an identification with community, altruism. The only collective that she understood was: Rally around and slay the enemy.

You don't get on by being original. You don't get on by being bright. You don't get on by being strong. You get on by being a subtle crook.

Like a historian, I interpret, select, discard, shape, simplify. Unlike a historian, I make up people's thoughts.

When people begin to talk about "our island story" my hackles rise. It is deluded and conservative.

It is all very well planning what you will do in six months, what you will do in a year, but it’s no good at all if you don’t have a plan for tomorrow.