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

[T]he heart is like any other organ, you can weigh it on a scale.

You mustn't stand about. Come home with me to dinner.’ ‘No.’ More shakes his head. ‘I would rather be blown around on the river and go home hungry. If I could trust you only to put food in my mouth – but you will put words into it.

The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman's sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.

I think if the monarchy were removed tomorrow, it wouldn't have a huge effect on the national mind-set.

I'm a very organised and rational and linear thinker and you have to stop all that to write a novel.

Imagine the consequences of having the first woman prime minister who is the milk snatcher. [Margaret Thatcher] takes away the nourishment of the nation.