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

I think if the monarchy were removed tomorrow, it wouldn't have a huge effect on the national mind-set.

I once stole a book. It was really just the once, and at the time I called it borrowing. It was 1970, and the book, I could see by its lack of date stamps, had been lying unappreciated on the shelves of my convent school library since its publication in 1945.

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

Fear of commitment lies behind the fear of writing.

You're only young once, they say, but doesn't it go on for a long time? More years than you can bear.

For many imaginative writers, working for the press is a fact of their life. But it's best not to like it too much.