The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman's sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.

I think it took me half a page of 'Wolf Hall' to think: 'This is the novel I should have been writing all along.'

I didn't cry much after I was 35, but staggered stony-faced into middle age, a handkerchief still in my bag just in case.

Suppose within each book there is another book, and within every letter on every page another volume constantly unfolding; but these volumes take no space on the desk. Suppose knowledge could be reduced to a quintessence, held within a picture, a sign, held within a place which is no place. Suppose the human skull were to become capacious, spaces opening inside it, humming chambers like beehives.

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

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

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.