I believe this was [Margaret Thatcher] estimate of the voter: "These people are so stupid that they will vote for me because they think I know how to run the household."

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

Truth can break the gates down, truth can howl in the street; unless truth is pleasing, personable and easy to like, she is condemned to stay whimpering at the back door.

'Show up at the desk' is one of the first rules of writing, but for 'Wolf Hall' I was about 30 years late.

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

People who wrote literary novels about the past probably didn't want them pegged as historical fiction. Certainly that was true in England.

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