I used to think that when I set out that doing the research was enough! But then the gaps would emerge that could only be filled by the imagination. And imagination only comes when you privilege the subconscious, when you make delay and procrastination work for you.

It's complementary. It's fairly clear where the boundaries are. When I start telling you the contents of his head, I am making it up. But I try to make it up based on what is on the record. So even my wildest speculations [on Thomas Cromwell] will have a root somewhere.

Fiction isn't made by scraping the bones of topicality for the last shreds and sinews, to be processed into mechanically recovered prose. Like journalism, it deals in ideas as well as facts, but also in metaphors, symbols and myths.

Like a historian, I interpret, select, discard, shape, simplify. Unlike a historian, I make up people's thoughts.

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

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

History is a set of skills rather than a narrative.