Wolf Hall attempts to duplicate not the historian's chronology but the way memory works: in leaps, loops, flashes.

Memory isn't a theme; it's part of the human condition.

I can't think of any male politician who magnetizes love and hate - mainly hate - the way [Margaret Thatcher] did.

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

History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.

Much historical fiction that centers on real people has always been deficient in information, lacking in craft and empty in affect.

I only became a novelist because I thought I had missed my chance to become a historian.