I didn't cry much after I was 35, but staggered stony-faced into middle age, a handkerchief still in my bag just in case.

One of the ideals [Margaret Thatcher] grew up with was self-denial and postponement of gratification, and yet she went about to create a greedy, short-term society. It is a paradox.

The worship of Thomas More goes beyond Catholics.

When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them.

I loved Gore Vidal's Burr. That book gave me courage.

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

[Margaret Thatcher] assumed somehow that this would get the woman voter and all those juvenile male voters who wanted a well-regulated household with a woman who knew what she should be doing.