I am usually protective of my work, not showing it to anyone until it has been redrafted and polished.

When I was thin, I had no notion of what being fat is like. When I worked in a department store, I had sold clothes to women of most sizes, so I should have known; but perhaps you have to experience the state from the inside, to understand what fat is like.

It is almost a joke, but a joke that nobody tells.

Those who are made can be unmade.

One of the ideals [Margaret Thatcher] grew up with was self-denial and postponement of gratification, and yet she went about to create a greedy, short-term society. It is a paradox.

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.

You don't get on by being original. You don't get on by being bright. You don't get on by being strong. You get on by being a subtle crook.