For historians, creative writers provide a kind of pornography.

It is better not to try people, not to force them to desperation. Make them prosper; out of superfluidity, they will be generous. Full bellies breed gentle manners. The pinch of famine makes monsters.

What [Margaret Thatcher] made a play for was the acquisitive: our greedy nature. She set aside other things like an identification with community, altruism. The only collective that she understood was: Rally around and slay the enemy.

I dislike pastiche; it attracts attention to the language only.

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

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

Watching live actors onstage, in something that changes night by night, real people picking up cues from each other, it concentrates you on the process rather than the result.