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'm a very organised and rational and linear thinker and you have to stop all that to write a novel.

[Margaret] Thatcher could fake her class background, but she couldn't fake the quality of her mind.

I think it is going to take another fifty years for the report to be in. If I were to give a preliminary report, I would say that [Margaret Thatcher] wrecked this country.

It was unfortunate for other women who might come after [Margaret Thatcher] that the first woman to become prime minister was a male impersonator.

Hindsight is the historian's necessary vice.

[Margaret Thatcher] admitted to being the daughter of her father but not the daughter of her mother!