Rafe asks him, could the king's freedom be obtained, sir, with more economy of means? Less bloodshed? Look, he says: once you have exhausted the process of negotiation and compromise, one you have fixed on the destruction of an enemy, that destruction must be swift and it must be perfect. Before you even glance in his direction, you should have his name on a warrant, the ports blocked, his wife and friends bought, his heir under your protection, his money in your strong room and his dog running to your whistle. Before he wakes in the morning, you should have the axe in your hand.

The word 'however' is like an imp coiled beneath your chair. It induces ink to form words you have not yet seen, and lines to march across the page and overshoot the margin. There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one.

I spend a lot of my time talking to the dead, but since I get paid for it, no one thinks I'm mad.

I do myself think that history is a set of skills rather than a narrative.

I am very happy in second-hand bookshops; would a gardener not be happy in a garden?

I'm one of these children who grew up at the knee of my grandmother and her elder sister, listening to very old people talk about their memories.

I would have been a disaster as a career politician. I would never have toed a party line.