In order to successfully impersonate men, the woman [Margaret Thatcher] launched a war.

Fiction isn't made by scraping the bones of topicality for the last shreds and sinews, to be processed into mechanically recovered prose. Like journalism, it deals in ideas as well as facts, but also in metaphors, symbols and myths.

I believe this was [Margaret Thatcher] estimate of the voter: "These people are so stupid that they will vote for me because they think I know how to run the household."

Sometimes peace looks like war, you cannot tell them apart.

For what's the point of breeding children, if each generation does not improve on what went before.

It was a very funny conference. I knew [Christopher Hitchens] before that. He had always been a good angel to me. He once stole a phrase from me that came out of his mouth on television. I saw his eyes move sideways. I thought, It's alright, you can have it! The conference was light on women. Salman Rushdie showed up, they were doing their own thing. I didn't feel neglected!

[Margaret Thatcher] said there was no thing such as society. This is what I find so interesting psychologically. Where did she come from? She had no mother. Her father came from a very identifiable background: religious, highly conformist.