You learn nothing about men by snubbing them and crushing their pride. You must ask them what it is they can do in this world, that they alone can do.

My first book was a historical novel. I started writing in 1974. In those days, historical novels meant ladies with swelling bosoms on the cover. Basically, it meant historical romance. It was not respectable as a genre.

I dislike pastiche; it attracts attention to the language only.

[H]ope takes you by the throat like a stranger, it makes your heart leap.

I think it took me half a page of 'Wolf Hall' to think: 'This is the novel I should have been writing all along.'

Beneath every history, another history.

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