Memory isn't a theme; it's part of the human condition.

Back in my 20s, when I wrote 'A Place of Greater Safety,' the French Revolution novel, I thought, 'I'll always have to write historical novels because I can't do plots.'' But in the six years of writing that novel, I actually learned to write, to invent things.

He is careful to deny responsibility for September, but he does not, you notice, condemn the killings. He also refrains from killing words, sparing Roland and Buzot, as if they were beneath his notice. August 10 was illegal, he says; so too was the taking of the Bastille. What account can we take of that, in revolution? It is the nature of revolutions to break laws. We are not justices of the peace; we are legislators to a new world.

It follows that if you are not a mother you are not a grandmother. Your life has become unpunctuated, whereas the lives of other women around you have these distinct phases.

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.

People will identify with a persecuted minority without asking themselves what they are identifying with.

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