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

Fortitude. ... It means fixity of purpose. It means endurance. It means having the strength to live with what constrains you.

I only became a novelist because I thought I had missed my chance to become a historian.

Feminism hasn't failed, it's just never been tried.

Hindsight is the historian's necessary vice.

I think it is going to take another fifty years for the report to be in. If I were to give a preliminary report, I would say that [Margaret Thatcher] wrecked this country.

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.