Imagination only comes when you privilege the subconscious, when you make delay and procrastination work for you.

[Margaret Thatcher] aroused such strong loathing in so many people. That's the fact that interests me.

[Margaret Thatcher] admitted to being the daughter of her father but not the daughter of her mother!

He thinks, I remembered you, Thomas More, but you didn't remember me. You never even saw me coming.

People will identify with a persecuted minority without asking themselves what they are identifying with.

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

Write a book you'd like to read. If you wouldn't read it, why would anybody else? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book's ready.