You don't get on by being original. You don't get on by being bright. You don't get on by being strong. You get on by being a subtle crook.

[Margaret Thatcher] was pretending that running a country was like running a household, which she knew wasn't true.

Truth can break the gates down, truth can howl in the street; unless truth is pleasing, personable and easy to like, she is condemned to stay whimpering at the back door.

It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.

I am not a historian. I don't see what I do as being a rival to biography.

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

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.